Background Checks for Property Managers

Property managers are entrusted by their employers to rent only to tenants who are the most likely to respect the owner's property and pay their rent on time. Their main job is to keep the rental property filled to capacity to earn maximum income for the owner. If you are a property manager, you need to know that the best way to do this is to require background checks on prospective tenants. Background checks can provide a great deal of information that you could not possibly know without one. An example of information that a background check can provide is; social security number check, date of birth check, evictions, liens and address verification. An applicant for rental property who is trying to prevent you from seeing their actual personal information may not even give you this basic information in its true form, but they may alter their information.

As a property manager, you may feel somewhat limited in making sure that those you rent to will make good tenants. Background checks can ease your mind, knowing that you have taken every possible step to ensure that you have rented to the most qualified tenants. With a background check, you can find out if the renter has any criminal record, as well as their rental and credit histories. Chances are that you may make a very wrong choice, if you were to rent to a sex offender or felon, yet if this information is discovered before the lease is signed, you then have a better gauge of this tenant. If you skip the background screening and this did happen, the consequences could become a nightmare for you as the property manager. The fallout of a bad tenant we all know. If you have hired a company to do a background check on all tenants, you are being more responsible, and have a stronger assurance that you have made a more informed decision

As a manager, the first thing that probably comes to mind is the extra expense that background screening will cost you. Many property managers and landlords charge an application fee to cover the cost of screening. The amount of the fee depends on how much information you need to gain. In the large scope of renting or leasing, the Fee for tenant checks is nominal. In my research you can find tenant checks for a very low investment. A background check will cost, however the cost will be less than 1% of the cost to evict a bad tenant.

If you are a property manager for commercial buildings, you can still hire a company to do a background check on the business that you might rent to. This is a commercial check, and is just as important as a check on individuals renting a one bedroom apartment. A commercial background check will let you know the credit standing of a small business so you can decide if it will be a risk to lease the property to them. You will be able to discover the company's number of employees, annual sales, and information about the business owners.

In conclusion, 15 years ago, Tenant checks or background checks were harder to come by and certainly more expensive than today. In 2010, the way to security is being secure from day one. Spend a little and save a fortune with proper types of information. For a few dollars, you can sleep better at night, and save yourself time and money by doing a simple background screen.

Discover Waterproofing Sealants That Work

Patching leaks in the facility is as easy as ABC when facility managers know the right type of sealant to use. Working closely with commercial building waterproofing contractors, the facility manager can choose the most superior sealing product that will satisfy the building's unique requirements. With many products out in the market, what are the choices?

Criteria in Choosing Waterproofing Sealants

The main criterion in choosing the sealant to use for commercial building waterproofing is suitability to the building's waterproofing needs. The commercial building waterproofing application should be a reconciliation of facility needs and product performance.

Another criterion for commercial building waterproofing that is often hard to ignore is cost. But facility managers should not at any instance sacrifice performance over cost, nor be influenced by cost considerations alone. If it is possible to find a balance between good performance and savings, this must be done. That is the reason why facility managers should work only with certified waterproofing contractors who can select the most appropriate sealant for the facility and use their years of experience and industry knowledge to work within the project budget.

Sealant Categories for All Types of Waterproofing Needs

Commercial building waterproofing sealants cut across three broad categories, and they are as follows:

1. Silicone-Based Sealants

These sealants are considered of the highest quality by industry standards. They are more versatile than other sealants because they deliver superior adhesive bonds to almost any surface type -- wood, glass, plastic, metal, fibrous surfaces, and even already-coated surfaces.

Silicon sealants evolved from nuclear and nanotechnology researches, as such they are stable and very resistant to extreme conditions such as fluctuating temperature and UV radiations. They are also used in marine waterproofing because they have stable chemical and electrical properties, and are often the sealant of choice in off-shore oil rigs that need high-performing fire retardant sealants.

Since these products use an expensive material -- silicone -- in their formulation, they are more expensive than other sealant products. However, that is more than made up for by high performance and a 20-year service life guarantee.

2. Urethane-Based Sealants

Urethane-based sealants offer a good compromise between cost and performance, and are often the preferred choice in more commercial building waterproofing projects.

Urethane sealants have decent useful life. They can last as long as 10 years with proper application. They also provide flexibility that is very useful in commercial building waterproofing projects that require sealing areas subjected to constant joint movements.

Since urethane-based products can be painted over, they are the preferred option for projects with aesthetic considerations. Thematic colors can be used for the building without hindering the performance of the underlying urethane sealants.

Urethane sealants are often used in waterproofing glass insulations, joint sealing, roofing membrane sealing, concrete and metal commercial building waterproofing, and even machinery coating.

3. Resin Modifiers

Developments in adhesion technology have synthesized polymers at their molecular level. The results are phenolic resins that are used to produce low-cost adhesives. Resin-based sealing formulations have excellent adhesion to many surface types. They can resist water intrusion and high temperature heat and flame. As part of a commercial building waterproofing solution, resin modifiers offer strength and reliability minus the expense.

Choosing the correct sealant suitable for a particular commercial building waterproofing project need not be a formidable task. Working with certified waterproofing contractors and gaining a basic knowledge of what's in the market today makes the task easy.

Professional Financial Management Uses

Many neighborhoods and property associations hire professional financial management services for many reasons. The main reason as to why this type of service is needed is to keep associations very organized, and to ensure budgets are kept up to date along with billing homeowners or anyone else needing to be billed. The uses of a financial management service are really endless, and many people do not realize how much work goes into running an association that handles many homeowners.

Organizing many different budgets for an association board is one of the main uses of this type of service. There are annual budgets, improvement budgets, and even budgets in place that keep in mind many years to come for the association. Up keeping something like a neighborhood can be very costly, so ensuring you are billing the proper amount is paramount in making sure everything is up kept and running smoothly. Another use of this service is that all bills are paid that the board approves of, which ensures that everything is according to procedure.

Billing homeowners and other members of an association needs to be highly organized and regulated to ensure all amounts are paid. People paying this money also want to see that their money is being put to good use and actually up keeping where they live, which is another use for a financial management service. After all of this money is paid and used, financial reports are needed to be presented to the board that runs the association, so that they can see everything is running correctly.

If some homeowners are not paying their annual or monthly association fees then this has to be documented. If it is not properly documented, then it is hard to enforce that these homeowners are paying on time, and paying in full. There is a lot of financials needs to an association, and it can easily get uncoordinated and unorganized without a professional service running everything.

Outside of typing up invoices, and keeping track of what has been paid and what hasn't, professional financial management can cut costs where it is needed, and use this extra money to improve on things inside the neighborhood or community. Budgets can even be made for improvements. The uses of the professionals are not only needed for an organized board that runs the association, but also desired for so that people save money in the long run, and to make sure everything is going how it should.

Professional Financial Management Benefits

Hiring a professional financial management service to run your home owners association or to take care of any type of property management service will free up a lot of time for any investor or owner. They can also make their finances much more organized. A professional company that is trained to handle your financial situation for your properties will ensure that everything is being run correctly, and will ensure that the association is being run to the highest standard.

One major benefit of hiring a professional financial service is that they can create exact budgets for how much running your properties and association will cost. After budgets are created, you can come up with how much to bill residents in order to keep the association running smoothly. Another benefit of this service is that they will take care of billing homeowners and collecting all the dues that are owed. This ensures you are getting the right amount of revenue each month and year to keep your properties up to par.

Other services provided by a financial management company are created budgets and arranging anything to be built to enhance the quality of the neighborhood or association. Board meetings can result in that people want to add a pool to the neighborhood, so having someone talk to the board for you and create a budget for pool-like additions, or even additions to the landscaping can free up a lot of time and make sure everything is organized so that the addition process can start immediately. This really keeps board members and homeowners very happy. Keeping homeowners happy will make the billing process much easier, and you can expect more people to pay on time if they see their money going to work.

If some people are not paying their dues, a financial management company can enforce these unpaid bills, and come up with fines and other repercussions to homeowners that choose not to pay their association fees. Running a large association or neighborhood is hard to do without the hiring of professionals to take care of the board, the financials, and the management of everything. You do not want to be put in the situation where you have to go door to door to collect everyone's fees, and also do not want to waste your time in trying to enforce homeowners to pay what they owe. Leave this type of organizing and collecting skills to trained professionals that make their living from making a property owner or a board leader easier.