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The Risks of Leaving Your San Francisco Rental Property Vacant for Too Long
September 17, 2021
How to Protect your Investment
You know the immediate risk of a vacant rental property: no rental income. An unoccupied property brings any cash flow to a halt and immediately begins to drain your return of investment.
The risks aren’t only financial. An empty home can attract the wrong sort of attention, and that’s dangerous for you, your neighbors, and the condition of your investment.
Protecting your
San Francisco rental property must be a priority, and that means you’ll have to find tenants quickly in order to put them in place and keep your rent coming in. While you’re waiting to find those tenants, make sure you’re doing everything you can to protect your property against the risks of vacancy.
We have some ideas.
MAKE SURE YOUR PROPERTY IS NOT A TARGET
An empty home can look like an opportunity to vandals, thieves, and squatters. You’ll want to do everything you can to deter those potential problems from your property.
1. EMPTY RENTAL PROPERTIES CAN LOOK LIKE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CRIME
A vacant property can be a target for enterprising criminals who may try to steal appliances, air conditioning units, copper pipes, wires, and other expensive materials in your property. There’s also the risk of vandalism. You could find spray painted walls, graffiti, and piles of trash in your vacant home. This will add to your cleaning and
maintenance expenses during the turnover period.
Check in on the property whenever you can. Consider installing video cameras at the front door and make sure the windows lock securely. Make it difficult for people to enter the property without permission.
2. UNAUTHORIZED RESIDENTS CAN TAKE POSSESSION
Opportunists and squatters may notice that your property is uninhabited, and assuming you’ve kept your utilities on during the vacancy, you can be providing hot showers and air conditioning to total strangers. If squatters take up residence in your property for long enough, they’ll have rights. This is often shocking and appalling to rental property owners, but it’s true - the longer a person is inside the property - even if they don’t belong there - the more complicated it is to remove them. You’ll need to go to court to get them out.
Make sure your rental properties in a multi-family building are being watched by neighbors and vendors. Keep lights on so it looks like someone is home. In single-family rentals, drive by the home whenever you have the opportunity. Install motion lights outside and keep interior lights on as well so those homes look less vacant to potential squatters.
Always notify the police if you think someone is taking up residence in your home. You don’t want to confront them on your own.
3. PROPERTY DAMAGE THREATENS VACANT RENTAL HOMES
Tenants are quick to tell you about leaking pipes and dripping sinks. Without a
tenant in place, a small leak can turn into a total flood. All that unattended water can lead to mold and necessary remediation. There’s also a fire threat. Faulty wiring, a malfunctioning heating system, and old filters can trigger a fire problem for vacant homes.
Keep your vacant property well-maintained and
conduct rental inspections to make sure there aren’t any drips behind tanks, toilets, and tubs. Look under sinks. Test the appliances and the electrical functions.
Don’t forget the costs
A rental property that’s been vacant too long will begin to cost you a lot, not only financially, but also in terms of peace of mind. You’ll worry about the money you’re losing and how impossible it is to make that money back, especially if a home is vacant for months.
AVOID LONG VACANCIES WITH SAN FRANCISCO PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
Let’s talk about how we can prevent the dangers and risks that come with extended vacancy periods. At BanCal Property Management, we’ve been protecting investments like yours since 1987. We can make sure your property is in great shape, even when no one’s in it.
Author - Tammy McNaught
A tenant move-out can be one of the most challenging parts of managing a rental property. There are keys to collect, inspections to complete, potential repairs to identify, security deposits to process, and a new tenant to prepare for. When expectations are unclear or important steps are left until the last minute, even a relatively straightforward move-out can become unnecessarily complicated. The good news is that many common move-out issues can be reduced with a clear, consistent process. For San Francisco landlords, a well-managed move-out is about more than ending one tenancy. It can help protect the condition of the property, reduce disputes, streamline turnover, and prepare the unit for its next resident. Here are five ways landlords can create a smoother move-out process.
Finding the right tenant is an important part of protecting a rental property, but not every strong applicant will meet every screening requirement on their own. An applicant may have limited credit history, insufficient income, or other financial circumstances that make it difficult to qualify. In these situations, a qualified co-signer or guarantor can provide an additional layer of financial protection while allowing an otherwise suitable applicant to secure housing. For landlords, however, accepting a co-signer or guarantor should involve more than adding another signature to the paperwork. Understanding the difference between the two, carefully screening the individual, and establishing consistent qualification criteria can help landlords make more informed leasing decisions.
Verify rent-control status, lawful base rent, banked increases, licenses and deposits before you buy or take over an SF building. Step-by-step checklist.
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