If you’re not focused on retaining your best residents, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to earn more on your investment property. Tenant retention is your secret weapon in ensuring consistent and recurring rental income and increasing your long-term return on investment (ROI).
Let’s leverage that secret weapon.
Avoid expensive turnovers and nerve-wracking vacancies. Keep those good residents. Here are five simple ways to do it.
1. Don’t Be a Jerk
Are you a good landlord? Are you responsive? Available? Helpful?
These are the qualities that lead to better retention. Your residents have all had one or two bad experiences with a landlord. They know what kinds of owners they want to avoid.
Don’t be one of those.
Instead, if you’re a good listener, and expert communicator, and willing to make an effort in providing a great rental experience for your residents, you’re more likely to keep them around.
Be easy to talk to. Provide resources and support when necessary. Respond to questions, but don’t hover. Let your residents enjoy their home and spring into action when you’re summoned. This is how you retain good renters.
2. Make Maintenance a Priority
It’s annoying to have to make a maintenance request more than once. When you treat even minor repairs with a sense of urgency, your residents see it and they appreciate it. We have read a lot of reports that reflect the number one reason tenants don’t renew a lease agreement: it’s maintenance. Make sure you have a plan for conveniently collecting repair requests and a plan for efficiently responding to them.
3. Bring Pets Into Your Property
Be a pet-friendly rental property. Why does this matter? Because residents who move in with a pet are less likely to move out when the lease ends. Who wants to pay another pet fee? Who wants to find another pet-friendly property? Not your residents who own dogs and cats.
A majority of tenants in Monroe, Issaquah, Bellevue, Everett, Lake Stevens, and Kirkland have at least one pet. So, allowing pets cuts down on your vacancy risk. It also increases the likelihood that you’ll retain your residents.
4. Make Things Easy
Residents want convenience, and when you can deliver that, you’re likely to keep them. Here’s what we mean:
- Online rental payments. Don’t make your residents write out a check, hunt down an envelope, buy a stamp, and mail you your rent money. Today’s tenants want to pay online. If you cannot set up an online payment system, download a payment app to make this easy and automatic.
- Collect maintenance requests electronically. This empowers tenants to send pictures of the problem, share the story of how they noticed the issue, and report problems in a timely manner.
Share expectations during the move in process so they understand their responsibilities. Go over the lease and be available to answer any questions.
5. Watch Your Rental Increases
Sure, your residents will expect a higher rental price when they renew their lease agreement. There’s no reason to shock them, however.
Pay attention to what similar properties are renting for on the local market. You can bet your residents will do this research, too. When you offer a renewal rate that’s just below the average asking price, you’re going to keep those residents. They’ll understand that it’s more expensive to move, and they’ll appreciate that you’re giving them a deal.
None of these five things are particularly difficult to do. However, if you really want to focus on retaining your best residents, get some professional help. We can provide it. Contact us at Real Estate Gladiators. We serve Monroe, Issaquah, Bellevue, Everett, Lake Stevens, Kirkland, and other cities in and around King and Snohomish counties in Washington State.