PropertyZar

Do you manage real estate properties with HOAs? Is communication with your residents something that is common for you? As 2019 begins, HOA board members should consider offering feedback on how the HOS can improve the community and make it a great place to live.

Responsibility

Tenants should take responsibility for abiding by the CC&Rs and staying current on their HOA fees. Violations of the rules or failure to pay the HOA fees/dues is not a win for anyone. HOA boards have a lot of power over the property owners.

Sharing

Tenants should have the ability to express their ideas, suggestions and their concerns in order to help improve the community and build lasting relationships. Residents are important in sharing the thoughts of the community. They should be included in the regular board meetings.

Building Relationships

Tenants should make an effort in participating in any events, social or cultural activities in the community. This gives them the opportunity to meet their neighbors, build

It’s time to face the fact that there is a good chance your tenants don’t love you. If that is true of your property management company, then maybe it’s time to find out why.

With all the potential issues that can go wrong, coupled with numerous tenants, it’s common to have rocky roads with tenants. However, a good property management company can implement processes and procedures to reduce the amount of complaints.

Good Relationship

A good and open relationship with your tenants is the start of good things to come. Good relationships lead to less vacancies and higher retention rates. Communication is critical for property management companies and the most common way of communicating is SMS, email and the phone.

Communicate about everything. Most property management software systems include these features as well as logging all past communications. So communicate about general violations, reminders for events, trash pickup, upcoming invoices, holiday schedules etc.

Work Orders

Another

If you have been a landlord or property manager for any amount of time, you have experienced both good and bad tenants. We wish that all tenants would be great, but the fact is some are not.

Warning Signs of Bad Tenants

First, to help minimize the chances of getting a bad tenant, property owners and managers should always run the tenant background screening that is available in most online property management software. In addition to that, be sure to follow up with checking references, past landlords and employers. This is not a guarantee, but it will help in the weeding out process. Here are some indicators that you are probably aware of:

• Difficult attitude and often threats or talk about lawsuits
• Regularly delinquent
• Leaves in the middle of the night
• Leaves the property in a mess

It’s unfortunate that these people exist but you can be better position to handle these types of tenant behaviors.

Attitude and Threats of Lawsuits

Make sure you understand the lease completely. These types of

Moving to a new place is both exciting and tiresome. For some, it’s a big relief to finally find a new home and be part of a new community. How property managers and landlords reach out to new tenants during this transition will set the tone for future relationships.

Here are some ideas to engage with your new tenants, after they have been approved and before they move in.

Welcome Letter

Send a welcome letter or email to your new tenant. The letter should include:

A Warm Introduction - Include information that you deem important based on your property, community and facilities.

Identify the next steps–things like setting up utilities, cable, internet,forwarding address etc. Provide company, contact emails, website links and phone numbers to assist the new tenant. Remember, they may not know the utility providers in that area.

Tenant Tools – if you are using a property management software, more than likely you have a tenant mobile app. Include this feature in your initial letter. Let them

Let's face it. Obtaining tenants can be expensive and time consuming. Consider the marketing expense, time to process applications, run background screening, verify information, the time it takes to ‘show’ your properties etc., the TAC (tenant acquisition cost) can be high.What’s worst is many property managers or landlords don’t even know what their TAC is.

So, with all the time, effort and cost in obtaining a tenant, how do you keep your tenants? Do you have a documented retention policy?

For sake of this BLOG, I’ve defined 2 groups of ideas (customer service and amenities) that retention policies fall into. 

Customer Service

This group can both directly cause satisfaction or cause dissatisfaction. If a property manager’s customer service is done poorly, they will cause a tenant to be dissatisfied with that property management company. Suppose a tenant tries getting a hold of the property manager and it takes 2 or 3 days before the manager responds. This would cause dissatisfaction