Landlords are often portrayed as negative, authoritative figures and at times most tenants are intimidated by them. However, from a landlord’s perspective, someone trusting you with their property could take them a fair amount of time to build a strong relationship with customers.
Rental market is also very competitive and it is very hard for landlords to get long term tenants.
But unfortunately the rental market is extremely competitive, and landlords may find they have to keep upping the ante to ensure their property is an attractive proposition for prospective tenants. Equally, if you have a great landlord-tenant relationship already, it’s in your best interests for your tenant to renew their tenancy agreement – not only will this save you time and hassle finding a good tenant, it’ll also save you money on advertising costs and letting agent fees.
With this in mind, we’ve pulled together some top tips to help landlords keep the tenants they want to hold on to.
Maintain Positive Communication: Communication is the key to any relationship be it between a boss or an employee or a tenant and a landlord. You don’t have to necessarily text your tenant every week or send in house warming gestures, but keeping in touch with and maintaining a positive relationship can go a long way. You can always set a scheduled time to meet your tenants and meanwhile inspect your property. This will provide some added structure to the tenancy, allowing both parties to discuss things such as property maintenance.
Fix The Issues on Priorities: Maintenance issues can become a big bone of contention between tenants and landlords. To ensure your tenants are happy on your property, address maintenance issues quickly, settle for a paint job once every few years and look into the plumbing, flooring and any wood work issues which might arise in your property. If your tenant report something or you notice an issue while visiting, try and get it sorted as quickly as possible. You can also hire professional building maintenance services to fix the problems on priority
Show Flexibility: If your tenants make renovation or redecoration requests which might not bring about major changes to your property, show some flexibility and allow them to treat it like their own home. No one is asking you to allow the tenants to change the entire mapping of your house, but adding a few shelves, changing the windows and remodeling the kitchen shouldn’t be a big concern for you
Go the extra mile: When your tenants first move in, small gestures of kindness can take your relationship with them a long way. You may start off with putting up a small welcome home gesture, which could be a basket of toiletries or a bottle of wine. You could even add some credit to the electricity bill as an added perk
In addition to these simple gestures that guarantee a great relationship with your tenants, you can also take it up on you and schedule cleanliness and maintenance of your property and the assets around it once every few months to ensure your property value doesn’t go down.
