5 Do’s of Landlording

There are ways to be an effective landlord, and by an effective landlord we mean a person who is able to successfully fill all the available rental units and is able to build strong relationships with tenants. It should be your goal to increase their satisfaction level for the duration of their agreement. This will increase the likelihood of an extension of a lease to be able to maintain a constant state of full occupancy.

Perfection is something that is hard to achieve in the Landlording game simply because the activity itself requires such tremendous amount of patience on part of the landlord.

There are a few things that one can do to keep your unit rented rate working like a well oiled machine without too many problems.

Keep advertising till full occupancy

Of course you don’t invest in a rental property to keep it empty. Don’t stop advertising till you get full occupancy. Use individual listings and be sure to include accurate descriptions and images of the property in the listing.

Use websites and newspapers to keep promoting your property, don’t stop until you get deposits booked for every last available unit.

Check photo ID and social media profiles

Before the applications start rolling in, build a proper screening process. Make sure to include analyzing the social media profiles, credit checks, and Photo ID’s of your  applicants a part of your research. These steps can reveal a lot about your potential tenant.

Remember the golden rule when accepting tenants: Their Rent to Income Ratio should be no greater than 40%

Treat Tenancy Applicants Equally

While going through the Applicant screening process make sure you do not single out anyone based on any racial profiling or other characteristic that could lead to a discrimination lawsuit. An example would be to take an increased security deposit for a certain demographic while keeping a lower deposit for the rest, or asking for a credit check for one applicant and not the rest.

If you create tools for helping with your assessment make sure your tools are applied to all your applicants and not just a single one.

 Facilitate your tenant’s requests

Remember that your tenants are the lifeblood of your rental business. They are the source of your income. Be approachable and try to accomodate their requests (the reasonable one’s) and be accessible, (within clearly defined boundaries) to provide assistance and services that are related to your rental units.

Nothing can stress a tenant more than an uncooperative landlord, and indifference on your part can even lead to potential lawsuits in the future as tenants can invoke their basic rights and build a legal case regarding inaccessibility for repair requests or failure to fulfill commitments mentioned in the lease agreement.

Follow up on your Repairs

Nothing will irritate a tenant more than a landlord that does not follow up on their work. Things break. It’s a natural thing. Once you are asked to do a repair task for one of your tenants, you need to respond in a reasonable amount of time. Then, make sure you check in a few days after the repair is completed to see if things a running smoothly.

Most of the time when things are not fixed the first time the tenant assumes a lack of interest in solving the matter on part of the landlord and that could lead to disputes later on.

There are many ways to be a good landlord, these are just a few helpful suggestions to keep in mind when trying to set up and maintain a rental property.