If you own residential rental property, you likely already know that you can receive a regular stream of income from your tenants. But this is just the beginning – especially if you own a duplex, four-plex, or other type of multi-family housing structure. That is because you could also reduce your own monthly mortgage payment by residing in one of the units.
There are additional incentives, too, for owning and living in one of your own investment properties, such as:
- Being able to finance multi-unit properties with a residential mortgage (as versus a commercial mortgage). This can also mean that your mortgage interest rate will be lower than if you take out a commercial loan.
- Accessing larger loan amounts, because the loan limits for multi-unit properties are typically higher than those for single family property purchases.
While living in your own rental home can certainly provide some great benefits, though, there are also a few other items to be mindful of. One is the time and effort it can take to manage and maintain your rental units.
Both interior and exterior maintenance must be performed regularly when you own residential rental property. This can include a long list of potential emergencies (which will oftentimes happen during the night, or on weekends and holidays).
In addition, if you reside in a structure with your tenants, they may feel like they have access to you 24/7. This is when it can be nice to defer any property-related issues to an experienced local property manager instead.
If you own residential rental property in Orlando and/or the surrounding Central Florida locale and you would like to delegate some (or all) of your “landlording” tasks to someone else, contact Central Florida Property Management at (407) 429-4834 or send us an email with any questions that you have via our contact form. We look forward to helping you increase your real estate equity without the need to take on more responsibility.