Everyone wants to be good at what they do, and when it comes to being a great property manager or landlord in Santa Rosa, you might be wondering what you can do to improve your performance and have a more successful experience. In order to be a great landlord day in and day out, compromise is almost always essential. Here are four areas where compromise will make the difference in being a great landlord in Santa Rosa.
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Lease renewal. Many landlords see the lease renewal period as an opportunity to raise rent. This might be true, since the value of the rental market often grows over the period of time that a tenant is living in your property. However, you need to weigh your desires with your tenant’s abilities, especially if it is a good tenant who has been reliable and easy to work with. You might have a terrific renter who cannot entirely keep up with the pace of higher rents. If you raise your rent too much at the time of your lease renewal, you might run the risk of losing that tenant. When you keep rent increases competitive but not excessive, it’s more likely that your good tenant will stay. Continuity in your residence will be more beneficial to you than incurring the cost of finding a new tenant. Compromise on the terms of lease renewal, or the amount of a rent increase, when it makes sense to do so.
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Tenant requests. Often, renters request certain “cosmetic” improvements to the property. For example, they might want a fresh coat of paint on some faded walls or new carpet installed. Consider working with good, long term tenants to evaluate what you can do to make the place more appealing for them. While the logistics of replacing the entire carpet in an occupied property might be a bit complex, perhaps you can propose to professionally have the carpet professionally cleaned, or replace a limited section. For example, maybe you can replace carpet in just the living areas. Look for improvements and projects that are simple and worth your tenant’s appreciation.
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Respect your tenant’s time. Every landlord should conduct periodic inspections of the property to make sure the residence is being well maintained and the lease enforced. You will also need to enter the property to take care of maintenance issues and repair requests. Make sure you take into consideration your tenant’s schedule. Instead of simply notifying your tenant that you will be there at 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning to change the air filters and fix a window, maybe you can ask your tenant when a convenient time would be for you to enter the home and make the repairs. Renters will appreciate that consideration of their time and schedule. (Of course, emergency responses and serious tenant breaches of contract would be an exception to this recommendation; in such extreme instances, it is typically appropriate to simply inform the tenant of your intended time and date of access.)
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Security deposit refund accounting. This is one area of property management that always requires attention to detail, and sometimes requires compromise on the part of the landlord. We’ll get more detailed on what goes into security deposit accounting in a separate article. Just be prepared to work with your tenants throughout the move-out process process.Doing so will likely save time, money and aggravation for both you and the people renting your property.
There are many ways to be a great landlord in Santa Rosa. As long as you are willing to consider compromise when it comes to lease renewal, tenant requests, maintenance and inspection procedures and the security deposit refund accounting, you can typically count on having loyal tenants who appreciate the way you do business.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
