One aspect of owning an apartment building is retaining and maintaining residents to occupy the space. It's important to keep tenants happy with the space and the amenities offered. With the right management and correct treatment of the building and tenants, you can maintain residents for a long time.
In this blog, we will go over:
Why is it important to maintain long-term residents?
What are steps I can take to retain residents for a longer time?
Step 1: Respond to issues in a timely manner
Step 2: Upgrade your amenities
Step 3: Increase rent reasonably
Why is it important to maintain long-term residents?
Maintaining long-term residents is important for landlords and building supers who do not want the extra work of re-listing the unit, finding a new tenant, completing paperwork, and paying for the unit to be cleaned and fixed up. The amount of time, effort and money spent that goes into re-listing and renting out the unit to another tenant can be avoided by simply keeping your tenants satisfied with their experience living in your unit.
What are steps I can take to retain residents for a longer time?
1. Respond to issues in a timely manner
Tenants want to be taken seriously as well as any issues they have. To show you value their comfort and prioritize their problems, address any issues they run into swiftly. Tenants are much more likely to stay in an apartment where they feel their problems are heard.
2. Upgrade your amenities
Staying up to date on amenities incentives tenants to rent out the space originally and can keep them there for a longer period of time. Adding security through an apartment video intercom system increases the rental units value, and makes the unit appear newer, satisfying tenants. Upgrading your amenities also means you will attract tenants who want a nicer space and will likely keep the unit in nice shape.
3. Increase rent reasonably
Tenants expect rent to increase every few years or so, but it's important to increase the cost reasonably. Open a conversation up with them, and see how much they're able to afford to increase rent to. If they were exceptional tenants, offer a month free or at half price to give them incentive to stay. Good tenants are worth being generous towards, because not everyone will treat your space with the same amount of respect.
Conclusion
Attracting and maintaining long term residents in your apartment building is the first step to successful ownership of real estate. Make sure to do research to ensure you are taking the right steps to find the ideal tenants. Finding the right tenants can save you time, money, and effort of re-listing your unit in the future. To retain the ideal tenants, be sure to respond to issues in a timely manner, increase rent reasonably, and upgrade your amenities. Putting in some effort to keep ideal tenants happy is easier than the headache that comes with filling the unit after a move-out.