Learning to recognize and keep good tenants can save a real estate investor hundreds of dollars in rental income loss and unit repair costs.

What makes for a good tenant? In addition to paying the rent on time every month, here are a couple of more things to consider.

1. A good tenant doesn’t bring unregistered cars onto the property, or leave garbage lying around the grounds.
2. A good tenant does not attract police attention or create a nuisance to other tenants in the complex.
3. A good tenant is responsible and considerate of others.

If you’re lucky, you might find a tenant who has some of these better qualities and pays the rent religiously every month. If you do, here are 7 suggestions how you can make that good tenant want to stay in your rental property for as long as possible.

1. Let the tenant know that you care about the safety and well-being of your investment property. This will indicate to the tenant that he or she is more than a rent check and that you actually are concerned about the tenant’s home.
2. Change the locks on the tenant’s door when he or she moves in. It will put the tenant’s mind at ease about who has keys to his or her unit. Also, later on willingly change the locks for the tenant if he or she reasonably requests it as long as you are not legally locking out someone who has signed your agreement to rent the unit.
3. Inform your tenant about where the electrical panels and water shutoff valves are or how to work the dishwasher or garbage disposal. Provide the tenant with phone numbers for police, fire, and ambulance services as well as utility companies and repair personnel.
4. Learn your tenants’ names as well as a few personal things about them for a more personal touch to your conversations with the tenant.
5. Make your tenants aware of rental housing assistance programs available and be willing to assist your tenants who qualify to obtain them.
6. Be willing to repaint or improve the quality of the unit after the tenant has lived there for a year or two. Often, a tenant will want to move simply because the place doesn’t look quite as good as it did when he or she moved in.
7. Listen to your tenants’ concerns about the property, and when reasonable, make arrangements to service your tenants’ needs.

Good tenants are worth their weight in gold to real estate investors—and maybe as rare. So it just makes good sense for real estate investors to make every effort possible to try and hang on to them.

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.