How to be a Good Landlord

Landlords spend a lot of time in filling in vacancies, this goes through from marketing the rental unit, showing the unit to prospective tenants, reviewing applications, credit reports, and background checks, up until the leasing proper (which includes a lease agreement, move-in processing and until key transfers). With that being said, landlords want to keep good tenants to lower tenant turnover rates. To keep their good tenants here are some ways on how to be an awesome landlord that good tenants want to have.

Give your tenants a Warm Welcome

First impressions count, this will help build a landlord-tenant connection. You can express your warm welcome in various ways; such as giving your new tenant a small token of the one-time welcome package with a thank you card.

Write your tenant for a welcome letter. Writing a short but sweet welcome letter also reiterating how happy you are to have them in your rental property will not only give a good initial impression but also create a positive tenant-landlord relationship. Provide them again with your contacts in case. Also give them usual information like when trash pick up is, contact information for cables and other utilities in your welcome letter.

Give them something they can use at home like cleaning essentials.  Sample of these is bathroom tissues, soap dispenser, or all-purpose cleaner. This will not only tick one of their grocery checklists but it will also create the impression to keep the rental unit tidy.

Be professional in dealing with your tenants

The first impression lasts so the very first thing you should show your tenant that you are a neat charactered landlord, and tidy rental unit, which also implies how you want the rental unit to be taken care of and maintained.

Be consistent. This means you have to be consistent in following the rental contract, the response time in every maintenance request, the schedule of your routine maintenance inspections and other things that requires decision making when it comes to your rental unit. This does not only show your credibility as a landlord but it shows that you mean following what is stated in the rental contract.

Learn to draw the line. You can be as friendly with your tenant as may be needed but you also need to draw the line when it comes to being attached emotionally as it may be hard for you to decide when the time comes that you might need to evict your tenant for any possible reason. You may be friendly with your tenant but don't be too lenient with how your tenant relates to you, and always stick to the clause in your rental agreement. Once this has been bent, except that it will happen again and again.

Stay calm all the time. During your tenant’s residency there may be a time when your tenant has crossed the line and pulled your string, even how angry you may get, you have to remain calm at all times, because with the presence of social media today, you don’t want to be famous as the next “angry landlord” who does something horrible in the internet.

Be There for them. You have to be there for your tenant when they need you, customer service is something that keeps good tenants to stay. Don’t build the impression that you are just there when it's due to their rent. Make sure your lines are open in case there is an emergency.

Respond Promptly.  Being there for them correlates to this because you have to be available to them as they needed you (of course when it comes to your rental unit). Meaning responding and acknowledging to maintenance requests as it arises, during emergencies, and when they ask you to come and show something about the unit.

Tenant-landlord relationship should be well taken care of and never be compromised, after all, it is always a hand-in-hand benefits, you get their rent and they get the home unit they need will reside in.