Landlords have a lot of responsibilities to juggle.
Between finding new tenants, prepping units, collecting rent, managing maintenance, and the countless other tasks that go into running a rental business, you want to develop good habits, so your business doesn’t suffer.
Here are five habits that successful landlords practice:
- Screen Every Tenant Thoroughly
Nothing is more beneficial to your rental business than a great tenant. One of your top priorities as a landlord should be to find and keep tenants who consistently pay the full rent amount on time, respect your property, and are courteous to neighbors.
The only way to sift through all the bad tenants out there to find the ones you want is to conduct rigorous tenant screening. You shouldn’t make snap judgements on any applicants even if they give off a good first impression.
Require every tenant to fill out a rental application where you ask them for information such as employment history, residence history, proof of income, pet ownership, smoking habits, and employer/landlord references. Next, you need to run a credit report to determine if your tenant will reliably pay rent on time, an eviction report to see if they’re prone to evictions, and a criminal history report to gauge if they pose an immediate danger to neighbors and other tenants.
- Use A Tenant Scoring System
After you’ve screened a tenant, you must make sure that you adhere to a tenant scoring system. This will not only help you objectively decide whether a tenant is qualified, but it’ll also help protect you from discrimination lawsuits.
The Federal Fair Housing Act protects the following classes from discrimination in the housing market: race, color, sex, religion, disability, national origin, and familial status. State and local housing laws may extend protection to other groups. Be sure that none of your criteria relates to any of these categories.
Score tenants based on criteria such as income, creditworthiness, eviction history, pet ownership, etc. The most important thing is to make sure you score every tenant the same way to remain objective with your choices. Lastly, keep good records of your tenant scoring sheets in case you do get accused of discrimination.
- Prioritize Tenant Communication
Good communication is one of the most important traits that tenants look for in a landlord. By prioritizing communication, you show your tenants that you care, and they’ll be likely to reciprocate when it comes to your policies and your property.
If you fail to keep your tenants informed or you don’t respond to their questions and requests, your landlord-tenant relationship will begin deteriorating. Maintenance requests are a good example of this. If you take forever to address or even respond to a tenant’s maintenance request, they’ll quickly become frustrated. On the other hand, if you respond to their request promptly, you’ll build trust and goodwill.
- Have Clear Policies
To make sure you and your tenants are on the same page from the beginning and to avoid issues down the road, you should make sure your lease agreement is clear about your rules and expectations. Be specific about your policies as they relate to rent collection, late fees, pet ownership, security deposits, utilities, subleasing, smoking, and whatever other rules you have.
With that being said, you shouldn’t expect your tenant to have the entire lease agreement memorized. If you notice early on that they might not be adhering to one of your policies, casually and politely remind them about the policy to keep the problem from snowballing.
- Stay Organized
With so many tasks at hand, it’s crucial that you remain organized. The best way to help you stay on top of your responsibilities is to use property management software. Property management software provides you with tools such as online rent collection, tenant screening, digital lease management, and maintenance management. Furthermore, everything is organized in one centralized location.
On top of all this, because property management software is completely digital, you don’t have to worry about manually updating your records and bookkeeping; it does everything automatically.
Conclusion
It’s important to get into good habits when it comes to running a rental business. Taking shortcuts will only cause your business to suffer in the long run. By picking up these five habits, you’ll improve the quality of your business, as well as your relationships with your tenants.
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