How do you manage your rental property in India from abroad? Looking to understand what others do
I own a flat in Bangalore and I manage it entirely over WhatsApp and a Google Sheet that I last updated three weeks ago.
Every month it goes like this - tenant messages me that rent is sent, I check my NRE account, see it's there, send a thumbs up, and that's it. No receipt, no record, nothing. My tenant has asked me for proper rent receipts twice and both times I said "yes yes I'll send" and then completely forgot.
Then January comes and my CA asks for the full year's rental records and I spend an entire Sunday reconstructing everything from my bank statements and WhatsApp chat history. Every single year.
I keep meaning to fix this but honestly I don't even know what "fixing it" looks like. Do you just build a better spreadsheet? Is there an app people use? Or is everyone else also just depending on WhatsApp?
Also curious - do you actually know if your property is making money? Like after EMI, society charges, property tax, the occasional plumbing/ maintenance work- I genuinely don't know if I'm net positive or not. I've never sat down and calculated it properly.
Would love to know how others handle this, especially if you're managing from a different timezone.
Last but not least are any of you members of NRI whats app groups about investments/real estate. Any country is fine. I just want to talk to people.
Any help is appreciated. Please Dm if you have info.