If you’re a landlord, you know it can be a lucrative business.

But if you don’t quite know what you’re doing, it can be a business that’s… shall we say, not so lucrative. No one likes to lose money. But you might be doing just that:

If you’re a landlord, you might be losing money — hand over fist — every month. Maybe you don’t even know it, or maybe you do; maybe you do know you’re losing money as a landlord in Fairfax VA, and you’ve buried your head in the sand hoping the issues just fix themselves.

Well, the issues aren’t going to fix themselves, but you can fix them.

And here’s how:

Raise your rent.

Do it.

If you don’t, you’re going to continue to lose money.

You might be thinking to yourself, “If I raise the rent, my tenants will move out.” They might. But they probably won’t. If you’re not raising your rent every time your tenants sign a new lease, they’re getting one heck of a deal!

Maybe you’ve heard of a little thing called inflation? If you want to keep up, you’ve got to keep pushing that rent up. I talked to one landlord recently who raised the rent by just $15 per month, on each of 30 units.

Guess how many of his tenants moved out? Zero.

Guess how much extra money he had in his pocket at the end of each month? $450.

Set up a fee structure, and stick to it.

I know: You’re a sympathetic landlord. Your tenants love you, and they love that you’re so lax when it comes to things like… paying rent a few weeks late. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s time to STOP doing that. You’re getting taken advantage of.

The excuses are always the same:

“My car broke down!”

“My dog had to go to the vet!”

“I had to buy my kids’ Christmas presents!”

Accept the excuse, valid or not, and issue a late fee. Every time.

When rent is paid late, you either have to pay your mortgage late, or pay the mortgage out of your own pocket. Don’t take that onus on yourself. Your tenant signed a contract; enforce it, or evict ‘em.

Don’t slack on your unit turnover.

Beyond that hefty Fairfax County mortgage payment, the number one expense for landlords in northern Virginia is not maintenance, or taxes; it’s vacancies. Every unit that sits empty — even for just a month or two — is losing you money, and big.

But filling an empty unit is out of your control, right? Wrong. Your ability to effectively market your property just might make all the difference in the world. There’s Craigslist, and Zillow, and corkboards in Starbucks.

Get out there:

Find your tenants, and make your life as a landlord lucrative again.

Life as a Landlord Can Be Lucrative, Unless You’re Losing Money