finding ways to maximize your rental income and minimize expenses is key to hit your cash flow goals and grow your real estate business but you can't simply increase the rent and stop paying your bills so what do you do here are three practical strategies you can use to increase your rental cash flow [Music] what is cash flow put simply cash flow is the movement of money in and out of an investment for Real Estate cash inflows or income could come from rent or pet fees while outflows or expenses could include taxes maintenance costs and other fees positive cash flow is an indication that you're making more money than you're spending each month on the other hand negative cash flow is a sign of the opposite so how can you improve cash flow on your investment property to make sure you get the most out of your investment here's the first tip know the numbers the key to improving cash flow is know your numbers and accurately track income and expenses for each of your properties not doing this can lead to misdeductions overspending on maintenance or operational costs or over or underestimating the profitability of your investment a few metrics you want to pay attention to is include cash flow capitalization rate net operating income and cash on cash return each of these numbers can offer indications of the Financial Health of your Investments and how you can improve it for example if you find that a property is failing to generate income that aligns with your goals and expectations then you know action needs to be taken whether that's cutting overheads consolidating assets or increasing income and even if it's going well knowing the numbers will enable you to identify opportunities for growth whether that means growing your portfolio or adding value to the property through strategies like renovation and upgrades or additional amenities way to stay on top of the numbers is to use purpose-built software like landlord studio with landlord Studio you can accurately track income and expenses for each of your investment properties and run our account approved reports for fast Financial Insights helping you identify opportunities or liabilities in your Investments the second way to improve rental property cash flow is reduce your tenant turnover tenant turnover is one of the biggest cash flow destroyers as it can create a slew of additional expenses including administrative costs advertising application fees showing costs and the scary one repair and maintenance costs while one positive to changing tenants is being able to increase your rent by a decent amount you'll often find that the extra expenses and time spent on admin such as drafting a new lease or managing property inspections just isn't worth it you can keep your tenant turnover to a minimum by maintaining a good relationship with your tenant keeping up with regular maintenance responding to requests quickly and keeping rents competitive you could also consider allowing pets at your property to add extra Competitive Edge over the rental properties in the area with late and missed rent the leading cause of eviction in the U.S making communication and payment as easy as possible between you and your tenants can also help to reduce turnover landlord Studio simplifies multiple aspects of tenant management to help you keep vacancies to a minimum our online rent collection tool and tenant app enables tenants to automate rent payments and easily submit maintenance requests you can also use landlord Studio to manage rental listings maintenance requests and tenant screenings so it's a great overall solution to your portfolio management needs the link is in the description if you want to get started now for tip three don't ignore maintenance it's easy to keep putting off small unimportant repairs in things like Plumbing Roofing or something that can be patched up and functional for another few months with a bit of DIY but the Deferred maintenance will most likely cost more in the long run than if you properly address it in the first instance for example if you spend 100 on patching something up for a short-term fix you'll still end up spending the one thousand dollars later to properly replace or repair it meaning your total cost of the repair is eleven hundred dollars rather than one thousand dollars maintenance is not just an end of the year end of tenancy test preventative maintenance can help you prevent cash flow sinkholes regularly examining your properties and knowing what types of Maintenance needs each rental will need are key to staying ahead of the maintenance tunnel be proactive in ensuring small tasks like changing a filter don't lead to a colossal ones later on catch small issues early and don't neglect them a smart investor is a prepared One apps like landlord Studio can enable your tenants to easily report maintenance issues so you can stay on top of repairs and make sure they don't lead to bigger problems further down in line in the app you can easily track prioritize and manage jobs then report them against your property as an expense for tax purposes so all your ducks are in a row come tax time in improving your cash flow and abiding by these three tips can be the difference between success and failure as a real estate investor at the end of the day only you can know your financial goals but getting the most out of your investment is always in your best interest to improve your cash flow we talked about knowing your numbers reducing tenant turnover and practicing preventative maintenance to reduce the long-term cost of repairs to keep up with managing your rental properties using a tool like landlord Studio can hugely reduce all the time and effort required to analyze all these aspects of real estate it can automate your bookkeeping and accounting to help you identify opportunities in your portfolio so you can focus on what matters most to you whether that's growing your portfolio or spending more time with your loved ones 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