Ideas to keep your tenants happy and renting in #realestate
Posted on January 3rd, 2010 by Carlo Capomazza
Here are some tips for small-time landlords who are worried about losing tenants at a time when options for renters are greater than ever. From Multifamily Executive Magazine, these renewal tactics are aimed at professional property managers, but they work for amateurs just as well:
* Start early. Don't wait for the final month -- or worse, until your tenants contact you. Several months out, contact the tenants to try to determine their intentions. If need be, offer to keep the rent at the same level. And if necessary, offer a holdover discount -- or better yet, a discount if they re-up for more than 12 months.
* Improvements. Offer to repaint or replace the worn-out refrigerator or carpet. You would probably make these fixes anyway after the current tenants leave, so make those repairs now and keep them. More money is lost when a house or apartment is left vacant than is spent by sprucing it up. And besides, the cost is deductible.
"It's amazing how happy you can make a resident by putting a new refrigerator into a unit," Mark Fogelman of the Fogelman Management Group in Memphis, Tenn., told the magazine.
Another major landlord visits with tenants a couple of weeks before starting the renewal process, using the meeting to perform non-requested upgrades to lighting and bathroom fixtures.
* Be handy. Make yourself accessible. If tenants get locked out, don't make them call a locksmith. Run over yourself with your key.
If your tenants need help with cleaning, for example, maybe you can lend them your cleaning company for an hour or two. It's hard for renters to give up a conscientious landlord and take their chances on an unknown commodity.
* Be secure. If the tenants have been there for a year or more and have always paid on time, there's probably no reason to keep their security deposit. Give it back, all at once or in installments. Any new place will want a security deposit, so this step alone will put you at least one month ahead of the competition.
For these and other suggestions, landlords, please contact me.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=b898d953-d715-422a-b50f-63de85bcf6e1)
* Improvements. Offer to repaint or replace the worn-out refrigerator or carpet. You would probably make these fixes anyway after the current tenants leave, so make those repairs now and keep them. More money is lost when a house or apartment is left vacant than is spent by sprucing it up. And besides, the cost is deductible.
"It's amazing how happy you can make a resident by putting a new refrigerator into a unit," Mark Fogelman of the Fogelman Management Group in Memphis, Tenn., told the magazine.
Another major landlord visits with tenants a couple of weeks before starting the renewal process, using the meeting to perform non-requested upgrades to lighting and bathroom fixtures.
* Be handy. Make yourself accessible. If tenants get locked out, don't make them call a locksmith. Run over yourself with your key.
If your tenants need help with cleaning, for example, maybe you can lend them your cleaning company for an hour or two. It's hard for renters to give up a conscientious landlord and take their chances on an unknown commodity.
* Be secure. If the tenants have been there for a year or more and have always paid on time, there's probably no reason to keep their security deposit. Give it back, all at once or in installments. Any new place will want a security deposit, so this step alone will put you at least one month ahead of the competition.
For these and other suggestions, landlords, please contact me.
Related articles
- Rents drop for 128,500 T.O. households (cbc.ca)
- Challenging a lease termination notice (inman.com)
Filed under: Current Events, Home Improvement, L.A. Times, LA Area, Listing Presentation, Real Estate Market, Remodeling, VRN
