Five Tips for a Happier Rental Property

To ensure your tenants are enjoying renting your property, and looking after it too, it’s important to remember a couple of things so that your relationship with your tenants and property manager is a prosperous one.

So I thought I’d pen a few tips to help remind fellow landlords that if they undertake these recommendations then owning their investment property will be easier and a more enjoyable, less stressful and a less time consuming endeavour.

Even though across the country we are experiencing higher demands than what has been the long term average of rental vacancies, it’s important to note that once you find a good tenant they are well worth looking after.

For the record, a good tenant is a tenant that pays on time, who respects your property and who is not always complaining about ‘the little things’.  They are almost a ‘set and forget’ type – just getting on with their own affairs.

So how can we have a happier rental property?

• Respect Privacy – Even though they are utilising your property in return for rent, you should take the view that they deserve the same sense of privacy that they would expect if it was their own property.
• Regular Maintenance – Keep the property in good shape through regular maintenance.  An example of this is as we are coming into winter; landlords should starting thinking about getting any fixed heating systems like gas appliances serviced, and air/heating condition units serviced. It’s also the time of year to start thinking about leaves in gutters etc.  (Tenants who have proactive landlords keeping their property in good working order are less likely to want to leave!)
• Prompt response to requests – If a tenant has a repair request or any type of request (even if you are not willing to agree) the promptness of your response is a welcome reminder to tenants that they are valued.
• Don’t become greedy  – The delay cost of replacing a good paying tenant in terms of missing weekly income from your investment could easily outweigh a larger than usual increase in rent per week, (if they decide to leave because it’s too much).
• Keep regular communication with your Property Managers – Communication is two-way, so feel free to keep touching base with them on a quarterly basis, as in most cases they should also be doing 6 monthly inspections on the properties and providing you with written reports as to the condition of the property and any issues the tenant/s may have.