Key Takeaways
Routine Tasks Matter: Small, often-overlooked tasks—like inspections and preventive maintenance—can have a big impact on profitability and property performance.
Keep Systems Updated: Outdated management practices and marketing strategies can limit your success. Regularly review and refine your processes.
Focus on Tenants and Compliance: Prioritize tenant satisfaction and stay informed on legal changes to avoid risk and improve retention.
Seemingly minor responsibilities can have a major impact on the success of a rental property. While many landlords focus on large-scale upgrades or dramatic changes to improve profitability, it’s often the routine, overlooked tasks that make the greatest difference.
If you’re seeking to maximize returns on your investment, the solution may not lie in costly renovations. Instead, it may require refining your systems, strengthening tenant relationships, and improving day-to-day operations.
These efforts, though less visible, contribute significantly to long-term performance and profitability. This article, from Penny Realty, Inc. outlines 10 commonly neglected annual tasks that every landlord should be doing.
While not flashy, these actions can reduce expenses, increase tenant satisfaction, and improve retention—ultimately helping your rental property remain competitive and consistently profitable.
1. Conduct Thorough Property Inspections
Routine monthly checks keep you up-to-speed with the physical condition of the building’s systems. Seasonal inspections of the rental units in the property help to ensure that tenants are not violating the lease agreement terms.
Annual all-inclusive inspections of all aspects of the property help you catch problems in their early stages. These inspections also aid planning by helping you channel valuable resources where they are needed the most.
2. Schedule Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is not done to solve known problems in your rental property. It is a preemptive step that takes place whether there are recognized issues in the systems and structures of the building or not.
The goal of preventive maintenance is to uncover unknown problems and prevent future problems. It is the most important intervention for drastically reducing a building’s maintenance cost.
By preventing breakdowns and improving efficiency, this step has a direct impact on tenant satisfaction.
3. Update Property Management Practices
When things work, we often assume that they will always work. This happens with the procedures used to manage a rental property.
Landlords can become overly comfortable with the established processes for tenant screening, rent collection, and maintenance request processing, without taking into account the experiences of tenants and market or technological factors that affect the effectiveness of those methods.
To stay profitable, it is important to conduct an annual evaluation of your property management practices.
4. Measure Tenant Satisfaction
The rental’s tenant retention rate offers a window into the overall satisfaction of your tenants. Another good indicator is how well the property is cared for by tenants; happy tenants take good care of their rented property.
Annual surveys and check-ins let you gauge tenant satisfaction. But these surveys won't mean anything if tenants don’t feel heard. Tenant surveys only work if there is an existing culture to listen to the needs of tenants and respond quickly to their complaints.
5. Update Your Marketing Strategies
Rental property marketing strategies are probably the most dynamic factor in the overall equation for ensuring investment property success.
The online and offline environments in which marketing tools operate is constantly evolving. Tactics that worked yesterday may have lost relevance with your target audience.
Consequently, it is easy to become stuck with outdated methods that use up scarce resources without delivering meaningful results. But you won't know this unless you pay attention to the data.
6. Build Relationships With Service Providers
Reliable service providers keep your property livable, safe, comfortable, and profitable.
Having good landlord-tenant relationships, and proper service agreements, with trusted plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, other tradespeople, and relevant service providers is vital for finding and fixing problems on time, or even preventing them.
The money you invest in maintaining these relationships can be recouped many times over in the form of minimal disruption to tenants’ lives, lower maintenance costs, and higher retention rates.
7. Keep Tenants Informed and Their Details Up-To-Date
A positive relationship with tenants is impossible without robust communication. Up-to-date tenant information helps prevent disputes and also facilitates quick dispute resolution. They help ensure compliance with relevant regulations, like records retention laws.
They can be life-saving in emergency situations such as when there is a fire or major leak in the property. To keep tenant records complete you need efficient communication systems that keep tenants constantly in the loop.
8. Stay Informed About Legal Changes
Changes in the regulatory environment can upend your operations and cost you avoidable stress and expense.
Sadly, these changes are often decided and implemented without enough notice. This is just one of the reasons why you should hire experienced attorneys with proven expertise in real estate.
You also want to subscribe to industry newsletters and join up with local landlord associations. Experienced tradespeople can help you stay abreast of changes to the building code.
9. Don’t Overlook Safety and Security Systems
Safety and security are key aspects of tenant well-being; tenants must be safe and feel safe. The trouble with security systems is that as new versions are developed, the criminals trying to break them are never far behind.
Most people don’t know this, but maintain a sense of security in systems that no longer protect. It takes just one incident to expose this problem. That one incident can ruin the reputation of your rental.
10. Update Your Property’s Curb Appeal
This is not just to make the rental attractive to potential renters but to ensure its continued appeal to current tenants. Improving your property’s curb appeal doesn’t have to cost a ton of money.
The improvements you make should be things that touch your tenant’s lives directly, such as improved lighting, healthier outdoor areas, a better perimeter fence, or an eco-friendly garden with more native plants and habitats for natural pollinators. These things also help you attract quality tenants.
Bottom Line
Overlooking routine tasks may not cause immediate problems, but over time, they can lead to higher costs, lower tenant satisfaction, and reduced profitability.
By taking a proactive approach to property management—through regular inspections, updated systems, and strong tenant relationships—you can ensure your rental remains compliant, competitive, and consistently profitable.
The most successful landlords aren’t just reactive—they’re strategic, consistent, and detail-oriented. If you’re ready to take the guesswork out of property management, contact Penny Realty, Inc. today to learn how our expert team can help you streamline operations.
