Any good property manager, commercial or residential, has a few good tricks up his or her sleeve. Tips for better tenant management in particular may be part of this repertoire built up with experience. If you feel that you could use a little boost in your own management work, consider some of the following and see if you may perhaps have let one or more go by the wayside.
Don’t Forget Tenant Management Strategies
To begin with, think about good tenants as “the lifeblood of profitable investments.” Without them, and without solid, hopefully positive relationships with them, you may not be seeing the kinds of result that you’re looking for. If you have questionable tenants, or you simply don’t have a very good rapport with them, you’ll find that your tenant management work is much more trying than it needs to be. Your financial goals will be lacking, to say the least, if these bad tenants or relationships persist.
If you lose a tenant for one reason or another, then it could “take up to two years to make up for the income lost.” That’s a scarily-long time frame! As a result, you should strive to foster good relationships with your current tenants to keep them from leaving, or at least to do whatever you can to make them not want to leave. Some changes may be unavoidable, but at least in this case, you can say that you did everything you could to prevent it.
So, how do you go about raising satisfaction? Having a plan outlined, at least for yourself, can aid in this process. After all, if you have clear goals and guidelines that direct your day to day as a property manager, things will be all the easier. This plan should regularly remind you of whatever needs your tenants have so that you can more readily address them, and you should also make a point of regular communication. If you aren’t sure what their most recent needs are, it will be very difficult to address those needs. Research has pointed out that satisfied tenants are three times more likely than their unhappy counterparts to go on and renew their lease with you, so keeping them happy should be your main goal.
In all types of property, security is a big issue shared by most tenants. This should be one of your first priorities, if the building is newer, but should also be on top of the list no matter what. Are any and all cameras that you may have functioning? If there is a doorman or receptionist, how have they been doing? Are doors properly locked when they need to be? These may not be things for you to check personally, but you should absolutely assign the task to maintenance or whoever else might be in charge to ensure that your tenants are feeling safe and looked after.
A lot of what causes problematic tenants to be allowed spaces on properties is poor screening techniques. If you aren’t properly judging the people who will be living and/or working in your building, then you’re at least partially at fault if they turn out to be less than ideal. Simple mistakes in this process can later cost you a lot of time and money, so brush up on your strategies in order to ensure that this doesn’t happen. Take heed of both your instincts and the factual report that comes with combing through background checks and applications to ensure that you do your due diligence within this process.
As with all leases, make sure that you are clear in the rules of the building to your new tenants, that you take a security deposit, and that you assess their situation very carefully, particularly if their business is on the newer side. There are a lot of parts to being a property manager, but creating a plan guided by tenant management tips will only help throughout your business.
Another tool that you can add to your arsenal is the versatile software: Budgetrac Property Management Software. Used by successful property managers of both commercial and residential properties, Budgetrac offers an easy-to-use solution to manage your business. It comes with a Retail Sales functionality which enables the comparison of tenants and assists in identifying troubled tenants, therefore preventing those losses discussed earlier. Your work can easily benefit from this product, so see what Budgetrac can do for your tenant management today!