Working to successfully attract long-term tenants is often more challenging than it seems. From time to time, landlords may be plagued with tenant turnover, despite their best efforts. While it’s hard to predict whether a tenant will stay long-term at the outset, certain factors can help increase the chances of tenant longevity. Read below for some key tenant retention strategies.
Contents of This Article
- Enhance Tenant Screening for Reliability and Stability
- Offer Lease Incentives and Other Attractive Features
- Focus on Creating a Community Experience and Building Relationships
- Prioritize Property Maintenance and Upkeep
- Bonus Tip: Attract Long-Term Tenants with Property Management
1 – Enhance Tenant Screening for Reliability and Stability
In the renting process, screening is an essential stage. It ensures the prospective renter has the capacity to protect your property and fulfill their rental obligations. Therefore, a comprehensive screening procedure can contribute to a successful and stress-free tenancy by reducing risks like non-payment of rent, property damage, and legal problems. As a Baltimore property management company, we’ll share some steps you could follow. Note that you must follow Fair Housing Laws through every step of this process:
- Draft a comprehensive rental application: In this step, you can gather important information about a prospective tenant. In addition to basics like their name and contact information, you should ask whether they plan to have pets (if applicable), why they’re moving, and other crucial questions. In addition, you could also conduct a pre-screening interview to get to know the tenant better.
- Verify employment and income: Here, you can request recent pay slips, employment contracts, or bank statements for verification. For self-employed applicants, ask for recent tax returns or financial statements. Ideally, a renter’s monthly income should be three times bigger than the monthly rent.
- Examine past rental experience: A tenant’s past rental history is a valuable tool for determining their behavior. You can get a better idea of what their character is like, as well as how well they maintained the property, followed its lease terms, paid the rent, and other key questions to ask references. To really get a fuller picture, consider contacting previous landlords for more information.
- Perform background checks: Be thorough when conducting background checks. They help verify the safety and security of the property and other tenants. For instance, you should examine someone’s eviction, credit, and recent criminal history carefully. However, note that local laws, as well as federal laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Criminal Screening for Housing Act can restrict which information you can look into. Furthermore, they can limit when in the application process you can check that information.
2 – Offer Lease Incentives and Other Attractive Features
Finding a trustworthy tenant is a game changer in the rental industry. However, the real challenge lies in retaining them, and it’s worth going the extra mile to ensure they stay. So, you could try these tips:
- Lease incentives: You could offer some modest incentives, like a free month of rent for signing longer leases, reduced parking fees for a month or two, or even a cash bonus.
- Upgrade amenities: Upgrading amenities and making property improvements are excellent incentives to encourage tenants to renew their leases. For example, you could install smart kitchen appliances or make a small outdoor space into a fenced mini pet park.
- Gift cards and coupons: You could set up a raffle to give tenants the chance to win a gift card or coupon. Of course, you must ensure the raffle process is clear and transparent to tenants, and that all of them are equally eligible to win.
3 – Focus on Creating a Community Experience and Building Relationships for Long-Term Tenants
Research indicates that renters desire a sense of community in their rentals. In fact, 75% of renters want to know their neighbors better. So, when tenants can bond, you can make them more emotionally invested in their rental homes.
Here are some activities you could host to inspire such connections:
- Hosting regular social events like barbecues or game nights.
- Providing shared spaces like lounges or gardens where tenants can interact.
- Send tenants a monthly email newsletter featuring rental reminders, updates on local events, and recommendations for nearby businesses.
4 – Prioritize Property Maintenance and Upkeep
One of the primary reasons tenants leave their rented spaces is poor maintenance. As a landlord, you should consider creating a property maintenance calendar. With this calendar, you can plan on scheduling property habitability check-ups a few times a year. Typically, 2 check-ups a year is enough. By keeping track of these events, you can inform tenants of your plans to enter their property with as much advance notice as your area’s laws require.
On that note, always ensure your rental is well-maintained and clean. Key features like windows, flooring, plumbing, lighting fixtures, appliances, and other essential items should be tidy and in proper working condition. With this approach, you can ensure that you consistently keep the property habitable.
In addition, to attract long-term tenants, you must prioritize timely maintenance requests. Ensure you have a trustworthy list of suppliers to deal with problems quickly. After an issue has been fixed, contact your renters again to ensure they are satisfied and to demonstrate that their comfort and concerns are taken seriously.
Bonus Tip: Attract Long-Term Tenants with Property Management
Are you struggling with frequent tenant turnovers? Retaining renters in today’s competitive market requires a strategic approach. If you try proven tenant retention strategies like enhancing tenant screening, upgrading amenities, building a community experience, or prioritizing property maintenance, you can help boost your ROI.
If you want help simplifying your rental procedure and drawing in long-term tenants, Bay Property Management Group can help. As your go-to property management specialist, we can handle:
- Tenant screening
- Marketing properties online
- Accounting
- Comprehensive online portals for easy tenant use
- Crafting lease terms that work for both tenants and landlords
- Rent collection
- Coordinating and running incentive programs
- Hosting community events
- Compliance with Fair Housing Laws and other applicable laws
All in all, we can provide services designed to help maximize your investment and enhance tenant satisfaction. Contact us today to learn more!
