How do you maintain your property portfolio if you own many properties?

Yes, keeping track of property values , what each market is doing, what the PMs are or are not doing, and your loans and rates and fixed periods etc is prob the hard part.

It is very hands on IMO, at least until you have no money worries, such as loans paid off and plenty of income, then you can just let things go and do very brief check here and there.

 

6, all managed by estate agents.

I answer emails saying, yes go ahead to repairs and maintanence, I do bill pays for the land tax thru internet banking. I counter sign new leases when asked.

At the end of the year I track down the yearly rental and loan statements and get my accountant to sort out tax.

I have a buffer in the offset account rent and loan repayments, insurance premiums etc comes from. Balance varies over time as I’ve done renovations, out of cycle interest rate hikes etc.

 

Anally retentive partner + adequate PMs does the job. I hate paperwork.

 

I turned the wife into one .

 

Wouldn't an accountant handle this sort from f thing?

 

They could but they would charge you. And an accountant is overkill. For a couple of ips not worth it.

 

In the early stages as we were accumulating more property I found it difficult to keep up with the ongoing bills etc. At that time I used to run each property out of a separate account, but then set all mortgage payments and rent to run out of a single offset account. This was much easier to manage. At the end of each month I reconcile the account and invest surplus funds into shares.

As for managing ongoing property bills I pay these as they come in and file bills in a seperate folder for each property.

I keep track of our net worth annually and have a spreadsheet with our loans, expiry dates, annual investment income and expenses which helps me keep track of our cashflow etc.

Over the years I’ve got used to adapting to refinancing and accepted that the portfolio is ever evolving.

 

Thank you all for your help - this is very helpful.

 

PM pays bills, and deposit rents into my accounts.

I pay all the insurances ( Landlord and Building)

keep a Excel Spreed sheet.

no need to know the exact numbers for each month, but need to know the overall rough numbers.

 

Funnily enough I got asked the same question by my client the other day...I think the key here is like what most people have already said, need to learn how to delegate responsibilities.

Similar to @Eric Wu's approach, I get my PMs to cover council/water/strata rates and pay them out from rent. I deal with EBM directly each year from building/landlord insurances renewal perspective.

I also have the habit of reviewing rental statements provided by PMs every month and confirm there are no surprises like rental arrears, incorrect charge, surprise maintenance cost etc. If there are any issues take it up with PM straight away (and that becomes an exception in my notes). If not then just keep them in my email folder - I have an Inbox structure to store these stuff.

So most of the time there isn't much work from me at all, just reviewing statements or on the call/email with PMs should there be any maintenance/tenant issues or lease renewal. So essentially you should only be spending time dealing with exceptions. You could even delegate a certain $$ threshold to PM so they don't have to seek permission from you to fix a leaking toilet for example.

Cheers,
David

 

I’ve got about 20. Throw all the bills in a drawer when they come in. Leave them there until the end of month. Check rent statements. Pay bills. Put bills in another draw. Pull them out of drawer and file tax return end of fiscal year. PM’s manage tenants and issues. Easy peasy.

 

I use the same system that I did when I only had a handful of properties.

PM pays for all expenses. All rental income goes into an offset account, all expenses comes out of the same account. I pay myself a set figure once a month out of this account. Over time, that payment to me has grown & we now live off of it. Each month I reconcile all statements with MYOB with each property having a job number. End of year this goes to accountant.

 

Like others, statutory expenses via PM but maintain control of expenses which may be scope for negotiations like insurance.

What has caused me grief is agents not listing properties for lease at least 3 weeks before lease expiry leading to vacancy. In fact, I just had another listing it a few days before and kicking myself as I know I should be keeping tabs to nudge inefficient PMs. I’ve tried changing PM but I find you will get some that are strong in say maintenance / insurance claims but weak in leasing and vice versa as it’s person related even for boutique family driven PMs.

I’m trying something simple (google calendar) to set reminders of when to activate advertising and I’m also trying a property management app but I don’t think app adds much value other than a pretty dashboard.

 

My collection isn't big and track everything in two main excel sheets.
1. Portfolio key info: key dates around lease renewal, IO cliff, Strata plan numbers, key contact people, current and past interest rates, ballpark sale price and yield.
2. Cashflow tracker to log and sense check that expenses, rates, repayments are in line with historicals (last year and this calendar year to date) in case there's odd spikes.Don't do it often- maybe every 6 months.

PM handles all the day to day and bills/rates/repairs.

 

Mate, how many properties do you own with all those filing cabinets?

 

15... sorry 16 with yesterday's SMSF settlement - a Dual Occ in Orange

 

Paid off by the rent in about 3.5 years?

 

Ah , no..... I live in the real world where properties have expenses and tax liabilities and I can only pay down debt with whats left over after all of that has been ...you know... paid for . For a 3 year repayment plan you'd need to go and chat to someone in Detroit


The SMSF property cost 575K The loan is $402,500 ( 70% LVR) @5.89% P&I and I am fortunate enough to be able to contribute an additional 25K towards it.

Without any extra repayments and at 70% LVR and P&I the Dual occ runs slightly CF+ from Year 1, and only really starts getting quite profitable by years 7,8 ,9 and beyond as debt starts coming down and rents start increasing ... but lets just call it neutral. So if I contribute 25K extra here's what happens to the $402,500 assuming only the 25K is able to used towards extra repayments . Gone in 10 years .


Even if I get wifey to join the SMSF and put in 25K as well, I can still only manage to make the debt disappear in 6 years and 2 months, which is precisely twice as long as our friend in Detroit claimed a US property could pay for itself ie 3 years and 1 month.

The difference is...these are real numbers supported by real facts

 

Hi folks,

My business partner recommended PropertyDirector to me, which you may like - Home | PropertyDirector. I own 8 properties currently and it was quick to put everything in and it shows you your financial situation on a single screen. It's free to use at the moment, I got a free 12-month sub.

It's probably even better for guys who own ALOT of properties (10+) which looks like a few of you here, especially the bloke with the massive filing cabinet!

I've loaded all of my statements there too, it's pretty cool, hope it helps some of you out.

Gaz

 

Hi Gazza215 - thanks for this, I registered yesterday night, and in the process of adding my properties. I've uploaded all of my statements. The multi-upload has let me upload all of my statements there (and I've got HEAPS including contracts etc).

See attached for how I'm going - the pie chart is awesome! I've blanked out my property addresses for privacy purposes