Property Management- Inexpensive ways to make your property safer

In this property market you want your property to have every advantage possible over the competition. Making your property safer will be noticed by potential tenants. I wanted to share a few suggestions that we use on our properties at Coastal Premier Realty.First add outside lighting to deter crime on your property. Lights with motion detectors are inexpensive additions that will stop intruders on your property. If you are showing your rental during the day make sure you point out this feature. Drive by your property at night to spot potentially trouble areas for lighting.Next you want to asses your landscaping. Overgrown landscaping is a easy place for potential intruders to hide. Overgrown trees can also block views of your building that will prevent others from seeing suspicious activity and reporting it to the police. Take a survey of your property and see if you can trim your landscaping to give better views of your property to prevent areas that intruders could hide.These two tips are simple, cost effective and will be noticed and appreciated by your tenants. There are more options to make your property safer that I will write in a future blog post. If you would like more information now please email our office at info@coastalpremierrealty.com and we would be happy to talk to you about your specific property.

Property Management - Watch out for this rental Scam

I wanted to take a moment and talk about a scam going on right now. Property owners advertising their properties on various online classified websites are often targets of this scam. The scam is that a potential renter will want to take your apartment but is relocating from overseas or from across the country. The renter will want you to send part of the money he/she sends you to pay to his/her interior decorator. They will have a pretty convincing story on how their employer will only write one check to cover all of their relocation expenses. They will provide you with their company info and it usually will be a vague website that could be true. Well the interior decorator is part of the scam too. If you accept that potential renters check deposit it and pay the interior decorator they will disappear. What is worst is that you will be notified by your bank that the check you deposited is not valid. That is the basic scam there are currently variations floating around as well- So be careful.In advertising and renting properties for my clients I have been sent numerous emails from individuals using this scam. No of course there may be exceptions and there may be legitimate people that may want to rent from you and ask you to do this. Just be very careful!! At Coastal Premier Realty, LLC we take great efforts to make sure that this scam does not happen to our clients. Please post if you have any other scams that you think potential property owners should be aware of.