As a landlord, finding and keeping tenants should be your top priority. Unfortunately, there are many types of tenants. Some think about moving within the first few years of living in a rental, while others may be bad tenants who disrupt the neighbors and don’t follow the terms outlined in the lease. Finding the best tenants for your building is key to increasing your revenue. A bad tenant is a bad neighbor and can cause others to move out. Meanwhile, tenants who aren’t happy with their rentals are more likely to move out as soon as their first year’s lease is up. For landlords, finding a good tenant is a necessity since it’s expensive to fill vacancies and every month a unit is empty, you’ll lose money. Here are a few ways to find the best tenants for your building.
- Work With a Property Manager
Property managers and leasing agents understand the local rental market and can help you find tenants. In fact, they may already have a list of tenants waiting to find the right place for them. These individuals also know how to set the right rates so you’re not alienating potentially great tenants by pricing yourself out of the market. Of course, they also prevent you from pricing rent too low to ensure a better return on your investment.
- Open Houses
Landlords can have open houses to show prospective tenants around the community. Even individuals who aren’t seriously looking for a new home may come just to see the features and amenities offered by another apartment complex, which increases your brand awareness.
- Use Rental Listing Sites
Rental listing sites can help you attract more prospective tenants, and the more applications you have, the pickier you can be with those you let live in your community. Many renters use online resources to find their next home, so it’s best to have online visibility to get the word out about vacancies.
- Determine Criteria
Having transparent criteria for what qualifies prospective tenants to get a home can help you find better tenants. By stating criteria on your website or directly to interested parties, you can filter out potentially bad tenants. Regular criteria should include things like minimum credit score, rent-to-income ratio, and lifestyle habits. For example, if your community doesn’t allow pets, you should state it directly on your website and marketing materials so you won’t get applications from tenants who have pets.
- Pre-Screening
Pre-screening tenants who respond to listings can help you filter out individuals who don’t qualify to live in your community, depending on your criteria. You can pre-screen tenants in several ways, but the easiest is to ask them for pay stubs and tax documents as part of the application process. If applicants are self-employed or business owners, you can ask them for profit and loss statements from their professional tax software to help you understand their financial health.
You can also let prospects filter themselves out by disclosing monthly rent, security deposit amount, and the rental application fee upfront. Depending on your criteria, you may also need to run a background check and require references from previous landlords or employers.
- Run Background Checks
If you want to find tenants who are sure to pay rent every month and won’t cause a disturbance within your community, you may choose to run background checks. You can run a credit check or criminal background check to verify information provided by the prospective tenant in their application. These documents should confirm their name, date of birth, current address, employer, and criminal history, which could make them dangerous to other tenants.
- Offer Incentives
The best renters will make more money than you require and have a stellar rental history. Therefore, they’ll have plenty of options when looking for a home. If you want the best tenants to live in your community, you should offer incentives, especially if you’re having difficulty renting properties or you experience high turnover rates. Adding bonuses can encourage more inquiries into vacant units. You can offer lower rates for renters willing to pay more upfront or waive application fees and security deposits to help get more applications.
- Have a Detailed Application
Using a rental application can help you screen prospects, but many landlords don’t have a detailed enough application to gather all the information they need to decide whether or not someone would be a good tenant. If you’re not asking the right questions, you can’t effectively weed out great tenants from bad tenants. You should always ask for personal references, employment history, income, and previous rental history. This information will allow you to take action by calling references to vet the applicant and ensure they haven’t caused issues at their last home.
Keep the Best Tenants
While finding good tenants is a long process and requires you to do your homework, you should also find ways to keep good tenants that always pay their rent on time, follow the rules outlined in the lease, and don’t bother their neighbors. Keeping good tenants will increase your revenue by saving you money since vacancies can cost you tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how long they’re on the market. To keep the best tenants, you must treat them well.
Tenants can choose to leave your community for any reason, but one of the most common reasons tenants leave a community is because of poor practices on the part of the landlord services. If you don’t follow your own terms set in the lease, you can upset your renters. For example, you must provide some notice before entering their home, as your tenants are entitled to some level of privacy even though they don’t own their homes. e
Additionally, you should focus on resolving maintenance issues as soon as possible. One of the most common complaints from tenants is that their concerns aren’t resolved quickly enough. If tenants have an in-unit washer and dryer, they expect those appliances to work most of the time. If you take too long to fix issues, your tenants will find a way to break their leases. If you want to find a keep the best tenants for your building, you’ll need to be the best landlord.
Ashley Nielsen
Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music.
