Multi-unit real estate in Seattle is alive and well as investors locally and abroad invests in sound opportunities here. If you have decided to bite the bullet and start investing yourself, you’ll need to know exactly what your duties as a landlord in Seattle are, assuming that you are interested in purchasing rental properties.
You have the responsibility of maintaining a safe and secure environment for your tenants. The way that you do this is variable. One landlord to the next has a different way of handling the building and the tenants that reside in it. One way is to be proactive while the other is to sit back and just let things slide by until they absolutely need to be handled.
Responsible landlords that have invested in multi-unit real estate in Seattle know that the proactive way is always the right way. A responsible landlord will ask his tenants if there are any problems on a regular basis. He/she will not wait for the phone to start ringing with a major crisis to deal with. He/she will actively take charge by asking the person that actually lives in the unit if there are any issues happening. This is by far the best way to find out how the unit is doing. After all, it is your asset that you are protecting.
A leaky faucet is a lot easier to handle than a flood on the floor that leaks down to the apartment below it. A malfunctioning electrical plug can be fixed, usually within an hour, by an electrician. When you compare this option to the potential consequences of a fire, the choice is obvious.
Most tenants won’t pick up the phone and call about these small problems until they turn bigger. Tenants are just like you and me – they have busy active lives. If you ask your tenant whether they have anything that requires attention, they will probably mention the small things.
Some landlords don’t want to deal with smaller issues since they have more important things to handle on a constant basis. The idea behind handling these smaller things is to avoid having important larger issues to work on.
This Seattle real estate market update is courtesy of Adrian Willanger at Coldwell Banker Danforth& Associates 206 909-7536 helping people buy and sale homes in the Greater Seattle area.
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