Many investors consider real estate to be a great asset choice, but it also often involves a lot of work.
You need to follow the best practices if you want your investments to be worthwhile. Rental properties can be a great source of income, but only if you're maximizing that income. Rental property inspections are a key part of property management, so make sure you take the right approach to them.
In this guide, we'll discuss how often you can inspect your rental properties in San Jose, CA. Keep reading for more.
Rental Property Inspection Purpose
There are various reasons you might want to inspect a rental property you own. Landlords often do so to ensure the property is in good condition and to see if any maintenance is needed. Another common reason is to make sure it's in a safe and habitable state.
Move-in and move-out inspections are required to determine if the tenant caused any damage before moving out. You may, however, perform more inspections while a tenant is living there.
How Often Can You Inspect a Property in San Jose, CA?
The rental property inspection timeline can vary between different landlords. With that in mind, it's important to understand rental property inspection laws in your state.
While there's no limit on the number of inspections, you have to bear in mind that frequent inspections will upset tenants. The rule you do need to follow, however, is that you should give suitable notice. The details of this should be set out in the lease.
The more notice you can give tenants about an inspection, the better, though a minimum of 48 hours is ideal. You can't just turn up unannounced, so make sure you let them know when you're planning an inspection.
Many landlords stick to annual inspections, so if you want to do this, you can do so on the same date each year and just remind your tenants when it's close.
Factors to Consider
Your rental property inspection frequency may vary depending on different factors. You'll want to consider these when organizing the lease and before carrying out an inspection.
Purpose of Entry
You can't inspect a property simply to look around; you must have a purpose. Annual inspections (or even quarterly/seasonal inspections) are fairly normal.
You might do this just to check up on the property and ensure there are no issues. Establishing a rental property inspection checklist will help you ensure you don't miss anything.
Landlord-Tenant Relationships
If you inspect a property too often, tenants may not be very happy. This will make them more likely to want to leave rather than renew their lease.
Providing too little (or no) notice will only make things worse, so make sure you let them know well in advance when you're going to be doing an inspection. The only exception to this is during an emergency, in which case you may not need to give any notice before entering the property.
Professional Rental Property Inspections
Most landlords perform rental property inspections annually or seasonally/quarterly. PMI San Jose is a full-service real estate asset management company that's part of a franchise with a history spanning over 20 years.
Take a look at our property management page to see how we can help with rental property inspections and much more.
