To be, or not to be? To be a wealthy land baron, or to stay on the real estate sidelines? That’s not quite the question you should be asking—if you’re thinking about buying your first property, your capitalist empire is still off in the misty distance. But that first investment could be the best financial decision you ever make. Of course, there’s no guarantee of success, but it doesn’t hurt to think positively. It’s too hard to ignore the top reasons to become a landlord.
Long-Term Investment
It’s satisfying to use your savings for something as tangible as a rental property. You’re not following the fluctuating numbers of the stock market—you can see your asset and nurture and improve it. It’s a good deal to buy property when the bank will lend you most of what you need. If all goes well, you can pay off the mortgage early with your rental income. All the time, your investment is ideally growing in value.
Steady Income
The goal sounds simple: You need to charge more in rent than it costs you to have the property. If you can manage that, you have a financial cushion you can invest back into the property, or set it aside for something else: vacations, tuition, emergencies. You’re covering yourself by diversifying your income.
Tax Benefits
It helps to know the government is rooting for you, letting you deduct the mortgage interest, depreciation, insurance premiums, and repair costs from your tax return. If you’re operating out of your home, you can deduct expenses from your office there.
Flexible Time Commitment
If you love keeping up the rental unit, you can save yourself a lot of money with maintenance and repairs. You can be a landlord and still have a full-time job for security. Or if you want to spend less time doing it, you can hire a property manager for the day-to-day details. At R. Russell Properties, we offer full service property management in Orlando. Our priority is to make landlords’ lives easier.
The Relationships
You hear a lot of stories about nightmare tenants, but the opposite is true, too. It’s best to keep your landlord-tenant relationship on a professional level, but you might end up liking who you work with: watching families grow, learning about people from all sorts of places and walks of life. You’ll probably make friends with other property owners, and you can make time to involve your loved ones in the business, too. Your kids might enjoy learning how to make small repairs around the unit—who knows, they could even turn out handier than you.
There’s a lot to like about owning property, and the top reasons to become a landlord may just convince you to give it a try. If you’re in Central Florida, contact R. Russell Properties so we can partner with you in your new venture. That way you’ll have plenty of time to expand your real estate empire.
