The Landlord Protection Plan is our proprietary flagship program, which provides safety and piece of mind for us and ourselves since 2013. We launched this protective safeguard for our investors and the results were so positive that all our investors now use that system.
This system arose out of our desire to increase your bottom line profit. The only way to increase profit is by creating additional income or reducing expenses. Combine that with the need for safety by doing multiple internal and external inspections on the property each year and you will understand how important this is.
The LLPP provides the following for our investors with associated annual value of the service provided:
• Annual real estate tax review and appeal when needed. ($150)
• Homeowner’s insurance discount under a master insurance policy ($150)
• Eviction Guarantee – you never have to pay for eviction or collections ($250)
• Pest review and exterior treatment 3 times per year ($195)
• Air conditioner filters changed every 3 months and complete
inspection of mechanical systems ($50)
• Smoke detectors inspected and batteries replaced ($30)
• Inspection of tenant responsibilities of cleanliness, maintenance, and
general attitude ($30)
• Multiple internal and external pictures with full report 3 times per
year ($150)
The total annual value of these services – $1005)
Your current investment price is only $399.00 per home and has been since 2013.
In Georgia, it is a law that when you buy a property the county assessor is supposed to adjust your real estate taxes based on the amount you paid for a house. The assessor’s office in each county adjust the assessed value off the sales price of each property. When bought they tyrically raise the assessed value as property prices go up, but don’t lower the assessed value as prices go down. We didn’t’ just hire anyone. We hired a company that specializes in this area and have the relationships with assessors in all the counties in which we manage properties. In some cases in 2013, they were able to have assessed values reduced by as much as 42%. This was over $800 savings per year for some investors.
We have a master homeowner’s insurance policy on our properties. This allows all of our investors to take advantage of multi house pricing. This policy provides for $1million in liability per property, a loss of rents provision and a $2,500 deductible. More importantly, in 2013 we had a hailstorm and filed over 10 insurance claims, and in most cases our investors made money on the claims. It’s one thing to have a policy; it’s another to get paid when the claim arises and we now have had several positive experiences with their claims department.
Georgia has termites and ants, and they are a threat to all properties. Three times a year the inspectors review and apply exterior treatments as needed to safeguard your house. In 99% of all inspections in 2013, a treatment was required for ants that would normally cost $75 each time. If termites are discovered the treatment can be $500-2500 which we are not licensed to do.
Cockroaches are another issue and usually mean that the tenant is dirty. This is another good reason why we want these internal inspections so we can see how the tenant is behaving. The inspection company that we hire to do these inspections advises us immediately for poorly behaving tenants and this elicits an inspection on our part for the tenant to remediate the situation. To make sure this is accomplished, we would hire the exterminator and invoice the tenant.
While looking for pests, the inspectors check all faucets and drains and look under the kitchen and bathroom sinks. They inspect the furnace and air conditioner and replace the filters three times a year with premium filters. This is critical because most tenants forget or don’t know how to change the filter. The absence of a filter change can cause a multitude of problems with the most expensive being the destruction of the AC/Heating system itself. At a minimum, filthy filters will shorten the life span of your system.
Smoke Detectors are in every house. Even though it is the responsibility of the tenant to maintain these, nothing would prevent a tenant from suing you and us if there was ever a fire. The tenants appreciate our concern for their safety and it separates us from other property management companies. Keep in mind, the tenants must cooperate and allow us to perform these functions, and the biggest benefit of all is that there are inspectors going through their home three times year and reporting to us and we report to you on how these occupants are taking care of your cash flow house investment.
The Eviction Guarantee means that in the event we have to evict your tenant for non-payment or other reasons you will not be charged for this cost. We pay it out of our pocket. Keep in mind that there are many times that we will start an eviction and the tenant usually gets caught up with the payments. You see, tenants are people and people have challenges. They die, they get sick, they lose their jobs, they have accidents, they get divorced; and in all of these situations, we must take action to protect you. This usually involves a time-consuming, cost-incurring eviction which could potentially become a very costly turnover. This is where you need us the most to use our common sense and human relation skills to take action and make a fast determination on filing the eviction and taking the next step. This is the not-so-much-fun part of the job that happens to every property manager at some point or another. Our goal is to solve these situations as quickly as possible for you while you sit back and enjoy your passive investment.
The internal and external photographs give you a warm and cozy feeling when you see recently dated pictures showing the condition of your property. Photograph accompanied by a report that describe the current condition of your property will give you piece of mind. Which many of our investors are 1000s of miles away from their home.
The only way that we can deliver you the LLPP at the price in our fee schedule is by utilizing the Tenant Protection Plan (TPP). This plan provides for all of the above that pertains to the property, and it requires the tenant’s participation at the time of lease up to agree to allow our sub-contracted inspectors into their house three times a year. We don’t charge them much because what we really want is their cooperation and a small contribution to lower your investment.
Everyone realizes that there are no guarantees with real estate as to how a cash flow house will ultimately perform. No one has a crystal ball, nor can anyone project what will happen in the lives of tenants. In fact, we had four tenants die in a six- month period in one year. No one saw that coming nor could anyone anticipate this loss of rents.
The loss of rents is nothing compared to the loss of life, yet we, as your property managers have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize your profits and minimize your losses. These types of situations are handled with compassion and sensitivity with the course of action dictated by each particular situation.