Owner FAQs

Having rental properties is a great way to build wealth over time.

The first way is that the rental property can make cash flow for you (Income minus the expenses would be your positive cash flow). Most real estate agents only focus on this.

The second is tax savings on your property because your expenses are write-offs (maintenance, our fees, taxes, insurance) as well as depreciation. As a residential rental property, you normally depreciate the value of your property by 3% of its purchase (so, if you bought the home for $200,000, you would be able to pay less taxes because your income would have a $6000 deduction now).

The third way is that rental properties normally appreciate in value over time. That means that if you bought the home for $200,000, if you sold it in ten years, it would be worth more than $200,000. At no time in a 10 year history has the properties in Southwest Florida gone down!

The fourth way is that you are building equity. If you have a mortgage, each month the resident pays, you are paying off the mortgage you have with their rental money. Normally the rent is more than the mortgage and taxes and insurance, but even if it is not, you are still getting financial benefits from it.

A fifth way is that rent can be used against times of higher inflation where, typically, the rents will increase to reduce the effects of inflation.

So having a rental property (or properties) is an extremely important way to build wealth.

That depends on a few factors. The main reason a property does not rent with us is either because the rent is too high or there is something wrong with the property (such as a converted garage into a bedroom to make it a 4 bedroom, 1 bath place or the carpet is old for the property).

There are times during the year where more people may want to move into a rental property (such as February). So this also affects how long a rental property may rent for. We do rent properties all year long though.

In addition, how many similar properties are on the market in your area. If you are the lone home in a 4 block area is great, but if there are 2 other similar homes for rent in your area, it may take longer to rent.

Finally the condition of the property as well as its physical location affect how long a property will take to rent.

When you factor in rent, location, condition, time of year as well as local competition, we rent properties within 30 days year round!

No, you do not.

Red Fortress worked with Section 8 for over 30 years but we stopped taking another further renters. It is unfortunate but the Section 8 housing became more and more expensive for our clients. Third party inspectors would often “create” work that needed to be done to a home whereas similar work did not have to be done if rented to a normal renter.

We have 2 times a month we send payments to our clients electronically. The money is sent directly to the account (or accounts) you want.

The first transfer is on or around the 10th day of that month. So, if someone paid their rent on January 1, you would normally have the money in your bank account electronically by the 10th of January (we cannot send money to you over a weekend). We send a second transfer for late payments on or around the 15th of the month. We can send a separate deposit at the end of the month if need be.

Some people may ask why we do not send a rental payment immediately to our clients. Florida law requires that we verify that the funds have cleared before sending you a rental disbursement. ACH transfers, checks, credit card payments and money orders can all be stopped, reversed and so forth.

The first time we see your property, whether it is occupied (we are starting to manage the property with a renter in place) or unoccupied, we will do an initial evaluation. During this evaluation, we will let you know of any issue that we see.

We will check the interior of the property automatically before a lease renewal (around 2 months before the lease end date).

In addition, if we give a legal notice, we will also look at the property (but not always on the interior).

Our contractors will also let us know if there is an issue at the property from the information that we give them in a work order. This will give us more feedback on our property and very often, better feedback than if we visited the property formally.

While this means we often see the property more than once per year, it does not mean that we can stop the resident from doing damage to the property. If we do see this, we will consult you immediately.

We are always looking for great, reliable vendors. They need to have the appropriate insurance and liability coverage and while we can work with someone you know, there are cases (such as an emergency), where we may not.

You need to have at least $300,000 in liability insurance with Red Fortress Property Management as additionally insured.

If you have a mortgage, you must have dwelling coverage as well (whatever level and deductibles that you and your mortgage company choose).

We have insurance for landlords as well that can cover you for evictions, malicious damage, lost rent in the case of skips by renters and more. Please feel free to ask us for information on landlord insurance (which is provided by a third party for Red Fortress clients).

Red Fortress does property management only. We work with many realtors who refer us their clients to do property management. Red Fortress wants you to go back to your real estate agent or Realtor if you choose to sell.

Lee County Realty, a sister company that works with investors, can help you look for investment properties if you like. The website is leecountyrealty.com for more information.

Absolutely! We have many happy clients and renters and you can go here to start:

https://www.redfortresspropertymanagement.com/testimonials

And we have many more!