Working With Belrose: 5 Common Challenges We Help Landlords Avoid

As we continue to grow our community of private investors, we have more and more landlords coming to us looking for a way to earn passive income after retiring from the residential real estate game.

If this sounds like you, here are five challenges we know you’ve probably faced and, most importantly, how self-storage investing with Belrose can help you never have to face them again.

Challenge #1: Finding a Property

Investing in residential real estate is becoming increasingly challenging as homebuyers and investors alike struggle to find and afford property. Home prices have increased by 88% over the past decade, with nearly 30% of that happening post-Covid.[1 ]

Due to a number of factors, including rising home prices and high interest rates, the sale of single-family homes to real estate investors declined 29% in 2023.[2] Notably, this is the largest drop we’ve seen in at least two decades. 

Here at Belrose, we have a team of experienced real estate professionals who’ve developed a proven due diligence process, which enables them to thoroughly evaluate investment opportunities on behalf of our investors. Plus, we utilize our extensive network of real estate connections to find attractive off-market deals.

Challenge #2: Handling Trouble Tenants

Over and over again, landlords tell us that one of their biggest challenges in turning a profit is handling trouble tenants and navigating strict eviction laws.

This is one major advantage of owning and operating self-storage facilities.

Because we aren’t in the business of housing people, our units are not subject to the same tenant rights or laws that residential homes or units are. Compared to the high cost of legal fees and long wait times, the process of “evicting” an unpaid customer’s unit is fairly straightforward, less expensive on our end, and much faster. 

Challenge #3: Finding Tenants

Some years, landlords have applicants lining up out the door to rent their space. Other years, it’s a challenge to find even one qualified applicant they feel comfortable renting their space to. Most landlords don’t have the time (or often, the desire) to spend on marketing their properties locally or online in order to drum up business. They could hire an outside expert to come in and take over the marketing, but those costs eat away at their already slim profit margins.

Belrose follows simple, yet effective, local and digital marketing strategies to attract passersby on the street and potential customers browsing online. Our investors don’t have to be marketing experts, nor do they have to worry about going out and vetting customers—our on-site facility teams do that work for them.

Challenge #4: On-Time Payments

How many times have you dealt with late or missed payments from a tenant? More than a few, we’d venture to guess. Depending on your setup, you may be waiting for checks in the mail or relying on tenants to remember to send an electronic payment on the first of every month. Either way, it’s usually a manual, and sometimes tedious, process.

At our facilities, we enable customers to not only rent a unit straight from their phone but set up an autopay option with their credit card as well. Our investors aren’t expected to chase down payments from customers each month, and we’re able to keep our delinquency rates relatively low as a result of having an available autopay feature.  

Challenge #5: Property Maintenance and Upkeep

Maintaining a home, as you know, is an expensive and never-ending process. A $10,000 roof here, a $2,000 water heater there—and all while collecting a set amount of rent per month. If you’re not careful, you can find yourself losing money on a property quicker than you realize. 

Above and beyond normal wear and tear, landlords also face the possibility of having a tenant who’s especially rough on their property. Say you spend thousands of dollars and many hours fixing up a property for a new tenant, and they live there for two years. Once they vacate, you realize they destroyed the property (far beyond what their deposit will cover), and now you’re back to square one—left spending more time and effort fixing it up for the next tenant.

By comparison, self-storage facilities are fairly simple structures—concrete walls, metal doors, and little in the way of plumbing or electricity. With fewer amenities, our maintenance costs consistently remain lower than apartment complexes, rental units, and single family homes. With lower overall operating costs, our investors get to enjoy more of the profits.

Tired of Residential Real Estate?

Between sky high asking prices, high interest rates, and challenges associated with running a residential real estate business, landlords are looking for more effective ways to earn passive income. 
If you aren’t part of our inner circle yet, we highly recommend joining. You’ll be the first to know about our next investment opportunity (slots fill up quickly) and gain exclusive access to content and self-storage insights. Sign up for our inner circle now.

Sources:

[1] Average home price in the U.S. is rising: $348K in 2022

[2] For Property Investors, the Price of Homes Is Still Not Right