hi all
Trying to find some help with bill managment when
it comes to property.Does anyone know the best way to manage the bills when you have more than one property? We have a line of credit we use for only that purpose.Is there any good books out there that get into the nitty gritty of property investing such as the loans and good money management?Hi Philip, not sure if this is what your after but you can download it free and try it.
Hope this helps,
rgds riskyHi Philip,
I have done a fair bit of re-organising myself lately, it sure can be a bit of a financial juggling act when it comes to multiple properties!! And now that i have 5 separtate loans i have had to change a few things to make life easier ….. I had my property manager direct credit the rent into the corresponding mortages, and i changed the dates they pay in to Sync with the date my lender charges my interest. My PM uses direct debit for tenants, and they have a choice to pay f/nightly or monthly, so i match my loans to when they pay . I insist on them paying me as soon as their system allows, rather than at the end of the month, alot of PM’s complain about this because they loose any extra interest gained from rental income sitting in thier accounts , but they do have the ability to pay sooner.I also use direct debit on my insurances and water rates to spread my bills out over the year.
But the biggest time saver by far has been using net banking. I have my standard bank accounts connected to my mortgages, and all my loans conected to each other , so i can shuffle money from one account to another if need be… very handy, and very easy to know where you are at .I also use phone banking quite a bit to pay bills and trasfer money if i am not near a computer. I use my redraw as a line of credit, and always have enough cash in reserve for worst case senarios.
I think having free redraws with a low limit of $50 is helpful also as it means i can keep most of my cash in my loans, keeping my payments to a minimum. Good question though Philip , it seems to me that keeping track of everything is fairly crucial in the world of property investing.
I tend to check my balances at least every second day .Thanks Risky I have downloaded the program and will check it out.Thanks also brownrabbit this is pretty much what we are doing but I should use the direct debit to pay our bills only thing is I was worried about the records when it come’s to tax time.We have all the rents paid into one loan (line of credit) and then the other interest only loans draw their repayments from the line of credit.If there is a better way to do it then Id love to hear about it.
Phillip,
Doing pretty much the same as you regarding loans..
My wife just uses Excel to record all statements etc regarding the properties when said statements arrive. We pay the rates etc ourselves rather than the PM, as this benefits us with the points on CC and we pay in total and on time to get the discounts on rates etc.. have found PM’s sometimes not paying and ‘not’ calling if no $ in account so they pay rates later, costing us..
I’m actually ‘looking’ at getting more constructive with my filing cabinet and each property, having a property checklist at the start of each properties file and notes on paint colours on each of the walls etc ( for matching later on as no doubt we’ll forget), seperate cost’s lists not just solely the tax file ( so over the years can track down ‘all’ cost’s assocxiated with the properties etc) and many other things..
tried downloading ez-rent but it wouldn’t install fully on my home computer.
If you use the direct debit.. don’t worry to much – it still shows on your statement for tax time..
A friend of mine is trialing the POSH sytem for his families properties and is a qualified accountant, so i’m waiting to hear from him…
If there’s a Easy Australian system.. we’d love it
REDWING
“The man that thinks at 5o as he did when he was 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”
I use Quickbooks Pro .. and separate each property by Class – at the press of a button I have a P & L on each property, complete with charts and comparisons, as well as an overall P & L + Balance Sheet for everything I own.
Makes life so simple as it can be done as I reconcile bank statements. Tooo easy!!
Cheers,
A” plays well with others
… but sometimes runs with scissors”
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