How to attract and keep good tenants?
How to attract more qualified tenants?
Finding a good tenant is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The ideal tenant with a perfect credit score, pristine rental history, and stable income can be hard to come by. Pouring through heaps of unqualified tenant applications is a time suck and is costing your business money.
As a property manager, you will want to save time by only having to look through the most qualified applications. By ensuring you list what you are looking for in a potential tenant you will greatly reduce the amount of applications you receive and hopefully prevent conflicts with a future tenant. It can be hard to attract the right applicants but a few tweaks to your application process can ensure only the most qualified tenants are submitting applications.
Here are a few tips to help attract the type of tenants you actually want:
List criteria for your rental property in the ad
It’s important that potential applicants know whether or not they will qualify. It saves both you and the potential applicant time if it turns out they are not eligible to rent from you. This includes minimum income, whether a property allows pets, no eviction records, specific credit score, etc.
Post an ad or property on a legit rental site.
Do not use Craigslist or Facebook marketplace as these websites attract scammers. Websites such as Hotpads, Trulia and Zillow are all legitimate rental websites that require a tenant background check including a criminal background report and a credit check.
Use online property management tools such as AppFolio.
Using online property management software’s is easier for both you and future tenants. Software such as AppFolio makes it easy for your business to keep track of applicants. Potential tenants will appreciate the efficiency of the rental process and easy access to all their information. Allowing tenants to apply, pay and send requests online is removes any snags in the rental process.
Additionally, something should be said about tenant retention. It is much easier to keep a good tenant than try to find a new one.
How to improve tenant retention?
Finding a good tenant takes a lot of time and work. By retaining current tenants, your business can save money, energy and time by not having to find new qualified tenants to fill any vacancies.
Here are a few inexpensive strategies to help improve your tenant retention:
Provide Great Communication & Be Responsive
Being responsive and good communicator with your tenants can go a long way. Tenants should be able to come to you for help with anything regarding their rental property including maintenance request, late payments or general questions about their lease. Treat each tenant request either through email or in-person or phone with a time-sensitivity. No tenant should have to wait days to receive a reply or a solution to their problem. To ensure that your tenants can reach you provide them your contact information in their welcome packet and go over the communication process while they are signing their lease.
Take care of the property and keep it in excellent condition
A great way to improve tenant satisfaction and retention is by keeping up with maintenance, repairs and home improvements. Tenants appreciate prompt responses to their maintenance and repair requests it shows them that you care about the property and the people living there. Not only will this strategy help you keep great tenants, but it will also help you maintain the property’s condition, improve its value and minimize make-ready expenses.