As a property owner you are certainly going to want to have insurance on your property. In fact depending on where your property is located, or who it is financed with, it may be mandatory that you do have at least mortgage insurance in place. There are many types of insurance that you need to consider.

Property coverage

This is the type of insurance that you would have on any property you owned as we mentioned above.

Landlord Insurance

There are many considerations here. There is the property and liability coverage that has to be considered, and then special risk insurance.

The type of insurance coverage that you will have the option to purchase, will cover costs such as legal fees that can occur from rental disagreements of various types. Then there are some polices that will protect the landlord when it comes to damage against his property which has resulted from renting it out.

It is most important that a property rental owner that is shopping for insurance knows exactly what they are looking for, and exactly what they are getting from the insurance policy. Reading over every inch of the policy before signing is of the utmost importance.

There will be decisions to be made as to whether you want potential property losses covered by way of the actual value of the property, or what it would cost to replace it. If you are willing to settle for actual value then usually the insurance rates are lower. Keep in mind though that the actual value will be less than the cost to replace it. You would have to decide beforehand that if the property were to be destroyed, would you be keen on replacing it or just taking the current value and not consider replacement

It is important to understand that the insurance you are purchasing is not for your renters belongings. The insurance you are paying for is only applicable to what is owned by you

Also keep in mind that rates vary from one insurance company to another when it comes to landlord’s insurance. Don’t just assume that all the companies are basically the same. You may come across an insurance company that is offering dirt cheap premiums, but on closer examination you will find that you are getting very little coverage for what you are paying. In this case you really may not be getting much of a bargain for your dollar.

The other aspect you may want to keep in mind is not to purchase insurance coverage where it is highly unlikely you would ever need. Be realistic about your insurance needs, and do be sure that you are well protected but use a common sense approach as to what you really do require.

Most importantly, if you are ever in doubt about what your policy covers, make sure you ask as many questions as you need – insurance companies are notorious for sticking to their fine print, so make sure you understand it in detail.

It is difficult to make an important decision such as who to rent your property to when you only have a short amount of time to do it. Ideally you want to make the most of every contact you have with a potential tenant. The one habit you do not want to start is being complacent in your tenant screening. There is an opportunity for you to have three individual contacts with a prospective tenant. Even though these are only short periods of time you can glean a great deal of information during that time.

1^st Contact:

Ideally the first contact will be by telephone in response to an ad. If at all possible try and make sure that this is the first contact a potential tenant will make with you. The first important step here is to be sure that when you respond to the call that you have time to ask some questions as well as answer them. Make notes of the conversation. This first contact is an important one.

If you are short on time then set your phone up where the caller can leave a number for you to call back on. This telephone number may be something you can use in your background check at a later date. The whole purpose here though is so you will have time to do a mini interview over the phone. First allow the caller to ask questions. The types of questions will give you some insight to the individual.

Then you can ask some general questions, for example what type of accommodation are they looking for? How many people would the rental unit have to accommodate? Is it conveniently located to their work? As you become more practiced at telephone interviews you will learn what questions to ask, and what the possible answers may mean to you. If the final outcome is that this looks like a potential suitable tenant then you can set up an appointment for them to fill out the application which will take you to the next interview.

2^nd contact:

Here is where you will be given a short time to give the prospective client an opportunity to either fill out the application form or take it with them. Here you will be able to make some visual observations as well as ask more questions. When they have completed the application go over it with them being fairly detailed as to your questions that are not on the application. Also see if there are any questions that arise from the answers on the application. End this contact by telling then you have some other applications to review and you will get back to them as quickly as possible.

3^rd contact

If you have finally settled on what you would think is the right tenant then you can contact the prospect and tell them it looks good, but you just have a few more questions and if all goes well then you can draw up the lease. Make it clear though that there are just a few more questions to touch on. However, if you feel totally certain that this is the tenant for you then you can eliminate this step and just get them to come in to sign the lease.