I've got a house that's about ready to be rented out and I've never been a landlord before... I've read the (pretty good by the look of it) guides at https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/ but wondered if there were any simple gotchas I was going to strike people might want to share...
House is a 20ish year old 3BR brick house in Chch with double garage, heatpump, gas hot water in decent condition. It does have earthquake damage that is not fixed yet, but it properly insured and fit for habitation. Insurance company is aware that house is not currently occupied and it ok with it being rented out.
Obviously one option is just to pay a rental management company some money to do it, but I don't know what they do, nor if they offer any real benefit. My dad has a property and used a place and they immediately managed to let it to a group of people that trashed it. Although I am aware of the myriad of things you can't discriminate on, I would hope that being someone that is likely to trash your place is one that you can :-)
So first of all, are there any good recommended places in Chch to do this and if so, how much say would I have in final tenant approval? How much do they charge and do they do everything (including maintenance, inspections, generation of accounts to enable claiming back of maintenance etc. WHo pays the tax? Do they calculate and inform of tax liabilities along the way?
Or.... I could do it all myself. In this particular case I MIGHT go with this as a likely tenant is someone I have known for over a decade and know very well - If I had kids for example, I'd trust him to look after them etc. Given that situation, do the rental property managers still provide enough benefit to be worth the money?
Any hints gratefully accepted. House is currently being properly prepped (insulation checked and augmented if needed, minor downpipe repairs, gutter mesh added, heating checked, paint touchups, carpet shampooed etc etc) and I'll be hoping to rent it out in the next 2-3 weeks.
Is there any benefit to spinning up a company myself to do it or is there no significant benefit over doing it privately?
Cheers - N