A Landlord’s Guide To Finding Good Tenants
There are just so many aspects to becoming a landlord, not least of which is finding the right tenant who will look after your property and fulfil their responsibilities. A good tenant is someone who will treat your property as their own, will notify you or the managing agent about any repairs that need doing in a prompt fashion and will ensure they pay the rent on time. Finding good tenants will help to minimise any stress from worrying about your property investment, so it is vital to know how to find them.
In all sales and advertising, one strategy that is used successfully is creating a client avatar. This technique can be used to identify the right type of tenant for you. Sitting down and describing the types of tenant that you would prefer to have rent your apartment will help when it comes time to advertise your property and ultimately evaluate applicants. Simply ask yourself what characteristics you’d like your ideal tenant to have and what things are most important to you – for example, you may want non-smokers, but be perfectly happy with pet owners. Having a picture in mind of who you’d like to rent to will help the entire way through the process of finding tenants.
One of the most underrated elements of finding the right tenant is by ensuring that any advertising you or your agent do promoting the property is targeted at the right audience. It is important to ensure that your ad copy properly spells out the positive aspects of the property that will attract your target market and almost as importantly, repel people who you’d prefer not to have as tenants. It’s also important to select where you’ll advertise as well because it is critical to get your ad in front of the right people. Advertising on the internet is now critical, but depending on the area your property is in it may make sense to take out an ad in the local community paper as well.
Hire A Professional Property Manager
An important step to finding good tenants for your property investment is to hire a property manager. You may think that you would prefer to look after your property yourself, however there is a reason that the majority of professional investors choose to get someone to do it for them. Property managers are experienced at organising and running all the various aspects of having a property, and will understand the local market. They will be able to help you determine the right rent to attract the type of tenants you want, and review it each year to ensure it matches the local market conditions.
If you are looking at taking on a new property investment you will probably already understand the value and necessity of having good tenants. Putting in the work upfront to identify the right kind of tenant for your property and focusing your marketing on attracting them will certainly help. Also, having a good property management agency that understands the local market and with a good reputation for maintaining their client’s properties is another key aspect that you should consider. The goal is to find people, both tenants and agency that will properly care for your property investment.