This job may not be brain surgery but you do need to have some common sense about you and over the years I have found “some” property managers to be lacking in this area…not all however. There are definately some great property managers out there, that’s for sure.
In the past I have trained my property managers to follow a little guide when it comes to leasing property. If followed properly you can definately be assured that no tenant lead is lost and that each and every enquiry is dealt with not just letting a prospective tenant disappear into thin air.
For me, spending time in sales has taught me many things when it comes to rentals, that is, that a prospective tenant is no different from a prospective buyer. If a buyer wants to make an offer on a property especially in a tight market like it is today, then they need to be treated like gold, just like a sales rep would treat a buyer. Tenants are no different to buyers, they both are not eligible for a home until they are approved!
So in the following order here are my top 10 tips or guidelines on how to secure a tenant –
1) Advertise your property on real estate estate websites, this is for the private landlords. You want at least 6-10 proper websites. All the tenants come from these so you need to Invest the money on advertising.
2) The confirmation process ok so you get an enquiry. You call back within 1 hour. You book in a private inspection that is suitable with the tenant. The morning of the viewing YOU ring the tenant to confirm YOUR appointment. This should not be the other way around. I had a PM rudely ask me if I had rung to confirm. In this market it was enough to hang the phone up and go and view the other 15 cheaper comparable rentals on the market. This mind set needs to be abolished in my opinion.
2) Conduct viewings. This includes those random mid week viewings that property managers love to make during their work time but also the evening/weekend/after hours viewings that suits the working tenants.
3) Make Applications available. If I had a dollar for each Pm that forgets to bring a app to a viewing I’d be rich. A PM needs to be organised and so does your website or on line enquiry forms. Tenants should be able to email and/or apply online in this day and age.
4) Once the viewing is completed Follow up! Hi Mr and Mrs Tenant, are you going to be making an application on the property you viewed with me today. If not why not! It is all valuable feed back for your landlords. If it’s a price issue then you are demonstrating where the market is at for your clients.
5) Create a tenant database put every single tenant and their needs into your database. This includes all your current tenants. You never know when they may need some where bigger and when you can help them find that somewhere on your portfolio!
6) Feedback, Feedback, Feedback every week you should be giving or getting feedback. How many hits? How many enquiry? How many viewings? How many applications? What did or didn’t they like about it? How do they think the price sits in the market? Based on this information landlords would be crazy to not align the rent to meet the market, but if they are not being given this information then they are clueless. Why would you reduce the rent if you feel it’s going well and you have not been told otherwise?
Thanks for reading my blog!
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