How Helping Your Tenants Can Help You
Being a landlord is almost like having a full-time job. Whether it’s a single-family unit or a multifamily apartment building, the maintenance and upkeep can really take a toll on you.
You need to look for anything that will make managing your property easier on you, and one often overlooked way to do that is to focus on your tenants. The quality of your tenants can greatly reduce the stress you feel and the work you need to do to make your passive income dreams come true.
Tips On Helping Your Tenants
A Fridge Locker, Online Payments, And Other Upgrades
If you are a landlord who already has tenants in a property, you can begin to make small upgrades to improve the quality of life for them. For example, if you have an apartment building that contains a lot of senior adults or people with disabilities, you could install a fridge locker in the mailroom to keep grocery delivery or medication cold.
If you are renting a house to a young trendy couple, you could offer complimentary WiFi as a selling point. Use the internet to your advantage in finding and keeping renters. A happy tenant is more likely to pay rent and pay it on time. Instead of being indifferent or going to war with anyone, showing that you are a landlord with a heart can go a long way toward reducing your overall stress and workload.
Make Keeping Good Tenants A Priority
Finding good tenants is not as easy as it sounds. Even potential renters with a clear background check and good credit might miss rent payments, break the lease, smoke, or damage the property in some other way. Generally, good tenants want a good landlord.
Research how to be a better landlord so that when you find a good renter they’ll be inclined to stick around longer. Remember that a bad tenant can be worse than no tenant. You may miss a few months of income but the damage someone could do to your property could end up costing you much more in the long run. Damages to houses and apartments can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars that could come out of your pocket. Another potential pitfall includes people ruining the reputation of the property, potentially making it harder to find high-quality renters.
Once you find a good one, move heaven and earth to keep them. A tenant you want to keep is one who takes care of the property, makes rent on time, and keeps your stress to a minimum. You may want to avoid renters who are spotty or have broken leases in the past.
Set criteria that your potential tenants have to meet as a general baseline before renting the property to them. Things to consider include a good credit score, no criminal history, and no history of breaking leases or evictions.
Help Your Tenants Make Rent
Even with all of this, there may come a time when your good renters struggle to make their payments on time, if at all. A person could lose their job, a couple renting together could break up, an injury could cause an increase in hospital bills, or maybe they’re welcoming a new baby into the world.
The fact is, life changes and tenants that you once loved and hailed as amazing can potentially fall on hard times. When this happens, remember that it is better to keep a tenant than to break a lease and find a new one. If there is a tenant that you want to hold on to there are ways that you can help them.
Keep yourself updated on different types of rent relief services, and talk to your tenants if they struggle to make rent. Ideally, they will be able to get on their feet and back to making their payments on time.
Who rents your property is just as important as having a property to rent. Keeping these things in mind can help you lower your stress and be an overall better landlord. Help yourself by helping your tenants.
