While there are certain advantages of having an investment property, being a landlord can certainly be difficult at times. When you have a great tenant and you are attentive to maintenance needs, owning a property can seem like a walk in the park.

What about when it comes time to put your property on the market to find a new tenant? There are quite a few steps to renting a property: marketing, showing, tenant screening and preparing lease documents.

How do you get your property rented quickly with the least amount of stress? Hire a real estate agent.

Here’s a list of reasons why hiring a real estate agent is well worth the money:

Time — What is your time worth? When you are working to rent your home on your own, you invest a lot of your own time: time off work to show your property, time during work to answer emails and phone calls from potential renters, and time after work to market your property. How many of those renters that you take the time to show your property to are just looking and not even ready to move? If you add up the hours spent dealing with these issues and put a value on it, it may likely come out to more than the fee paid to a real estate agent.

Resources — How would you market your property? Word of mouth, Craigslist, the local paper? An agent has several resources for marketing beyond those venues. They can add your property to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and their own web site. An agent will also be able to screen potential renters, run credit checks, background checks and prepare lease documents in a more efficient manner because they do it every day. They manage the questions, negotiations and issues that may come up during the process. In addition, they likely have a more strict screening process which will help ensure qualified tenants.

Lastly, the agents are going to be up to date on the current laws and regulations with regards to tenant/landlord issues so they can help you navigate that process to be sure you are compliant. Again, this is saving you money and headaches down the road for a stress-free process.

Turn Around Time — How long does it take you to rent your property? If you hire an agent as soon as you know your property is going to be available, you increase the chances of having new tenants move in after the current tenants move out.

When hiring an agent, be sure to find someone licensed and knowledgeable about your market. Ask a lot of questions.

Ask how many rentals they work with on a regular basis. What avenues do they use to market your property? What type of screening do they use? Ask what to expect from the entire process from signing up to showing, to negotiation, lease signing and turning over the  keys. Ask what happens if you find your own renter. Do they still charge you their full fee? Will they help you with the screening and lease process if you find your own renter?

Not all agents are created equal. Once you find a great agent, you can relax and let them handle the rest of the process.

Call the office at Astrin Real Estate and Astrin Property Management at 770.679.1770 or 770.313.4124. They are a full service Real Estate Office to serve all your real estate needs.