Common Property Investing Mistakes – Avoiding ‘The Landlord Trap’

When I first started investing in property, I was managing my own properties for a number of reasons. First of all, it didn't take much time to manage the properties. Secondly, I didn't want to lose 10% of my rental income to a letting agent for handling the property management for me. I also thought I could probably do a better job than the letting agents. The final reason was I thought, “wouldn't it be great to get to know and meet my tenants?” Now let me tell you, the novelty of that soon wears off.

So I was doing my own property management. At first, this was easy and did not take up too much time, but I noticed that as I bought more and more properties, it took more and more time to do the property management. I fell into what I call 'The Landlord Trap'. This is a very common property investing mistake and that's what I want to help you with.

You see, if you do the property management for all of your properties, it will start to take a lot of time. I found that the amount of time I had to go and buy properties diminished. This was because I was so busy with the property management. As I say, one or two properties isn't hard. Yet as you get more properties, you spend more time managing and less time buying. I'm sure you would agree, that you make money when you buy the property rather doing the property management. This is one of the most common property investing mistakes made by most property investors.

I understand why people want to start managing their properties, because that's what I did. But as soon as you possibly can, I encourage you to avoid 'The Landlord Trap'. Hand over the property management of your properties to a good letting agent who can manage them for you. Now of course, you are still ultimately responsible for your property. If something happens to your tenants, it's still your fault. So you want to make sure you have a great letting agent who understands and adheres to all of the legislation. They need to be looking after all aspects of the property management, including the property and your tenants.

The best way to find a good letting agent is to ask for recommendation from other property investors. Word of mouth is always the best way to get recommendations. By attending your local property investors network meeting, you could get a recommendation from other property investors who are using letting agents in that area. The sooner you get to the point where you someone else is looking after the property management, you have your time back.