Landlords Make Money Long Term, Not Hourly

I just made it home after spending a good part of my weekend working on a rental property and collecting some rent and to me, it’s part of being a landlord. I’m all clean and shiny now and as I sat down at my desk to quickly check some email and questions people left me, it hit me.

Most people won’t make good landlords, because they think like tenants. They worry about time off, they worry about weekends, they worry about the little things. Nowhere at Landlord School (ok, has anyone really gone to Landlord School?), does it say you get weekends off, in fact this tends to be your busiest time, same with evenings.

As a landlord these are the times that tenants are available to meet you. Tenants tend to work nine to five, Monday to Friday and as a landlord you have to work with their free time schedule if you need to meet them. You see they work for a pay check and as a landlord you are working for a longer term reward.

Why Did You Become a Landlord?

Ok, maybe not all of you, as I am well aware there are many reluctant landlords out there, but many of you who became landlord weren’t dreaming about being a landlord. You hear little kids talking about being firemen, police officers, business men, but strangely never landlords?

Rather you were dreaming about creating a steady stream of income each month. Many were even dreaming longer term about having a rental property that became your retirement nest egg. Some were even dreaming about their own Real Estate empire!

The issue with achieving any of these dreams is that it requires the extra work that others won’t put in. It requires sacrificing your time some weekends, it requires having to show  vacant rental properties during the evenings when you would rather be at home with your family and it requires your attention at inopportune times.

This is the sacrifice you make now, so that in five or ten years down the road, you are in a much better situation than the people working their nine to five so they can have their weekends free. Congrats to you for having long term vision and making money long term as a landlord!

Get Your Ducks In A Row

Part of being a successful landlord is learning to treat owning a rental property as a business. If you want to turn your rental property into a successful business, you need to separate yourself from the regular landlords. Regular landlords just show up, successful landlords have their ducks in a row!

Rather than just tell tenants about the property when they show up, or hope they remember everything from an ad they may have seen, prepare some info sheets on your property. Then as they arrive you can hand the tenants the property information.

Most tenants have multiple properties they are trying to choose from and this is a great way to stand out from those other properties. If you provide them with a handout that has large color pictures captured in the best possible way, details on the neighborhoods schools, shopping, bus information and everything else you can think of, who will stand out? Especially when they compare your information to their vague recollection they have of the other properties.

If you don’t think this would be effective, why do you think realtors have all those color info sheets at homes they sell? There is also an extra bonus that comes with preparing your info sheet. You’ve now become even more familiar with the area and it’s far easier to answer any questions that can pop up out of the blue.

Take It To The Next Level

After you’ve been a landlord for several years, hopefully you’ve had many happy tenants and provided a great home for them. If you fit into this category, it shouldn’t be a problem to get a few testimonials from your former tenants before they have moved onto their next home.

Why not take these testimonials and have them set up in various spots in the rental property? We’ve purchased several of the acrylic display stands from office supply stores for just this purpose. Having some positive words about you as a landlord on display can have a huge impact on a tenants decision.

We try and get testimonials from all of our tenants just for purposes like this. The more positive indicators a tenant has about you, the higher the likelihood if it comes down to your property versus another the odds will be in your favor of getting chosen as the preferred destination.  By being more prepared than most landlords, you will put yourself head and shoulders above them.

Show Up Early To Your Vacant Property

Many of the landlord tips I suggest are really common sense, but yet they aren’t done by landlords. This one regards meeting tenants for potential viewings.

When you have a tenant viewing booked, do you show up just moments before the tenants do? Or worse yet after they do? Showing up early can mean all the difference between a successful showing or potentially losing the best tenant you’ve ever seen.

You never know what could be awaiting you and if you’ve booked a crowd of tenants to view the property, being early gives you time to right whatever is wrong. During the winter, this is time to shovel the walk if it isn’t done. During spring or summer, it’s time to open those windows to freshen the place up.

This is also your preparation time to make sure everything is just right, the floors are clean, dust bunnies are in their pens, toilets are cleaned and flushed, all the lights are on to brighten the property and your property information ready to go. Being prepared can make all the difference, so you must also make sure you have a package of cleaning supplies, rags and air fresheners with you as well, just in case.

If you haven’t been to the property for a few days, it is an excellent time to spray some Febreeze around or plug in a couple Glade plug-ins to help air the place out. Make sure you pack some extra light bulbs just in case as well. With some of the modern fixtures you run into the new R20 or  A16 or new halogen bulbs and you cannot be expected to carry all of them around, so if you do have any bulbs out, make sure to note this and bring them next time!

Where we are located we have hard water issues and this makes checking the toilets a necessity. If toilets aren’t flushed regularly they quickly develop water marks. This is nothing a quick scrub can’t fix, but it’s also a great example of why you should show up early.

Advanced Tactics For Landlords

For the adventurous and to help create an even better environment for your rental, it never hurts to stop and grab flowers from a flower shop to put on display during your showings. This is especially helpful if your property is ideal for couples or families as it creates a homey look and smells nice. As an extra bonus you can take them home to your spouse after the showing!

If you are especially energetic, you can even pick up some of the cookie batters you just spoon out onto a baking sheet. The aroma of fresh baking is a fantastic way to increase the desirability of your property. Try this once and just watch the potential tenants faces as they are greeted with the scent of fresh cookies when they arrive. Tell me that doesn’t help push the popularity up of the property!

Your goal as a landlord at this time is to not just be a property owner, but also the best marketer of their property you can possibly be. Don’t forget your goal is to fill that property with the best possible tenants out there.

If you are just one of five places they are viewing that day you want yours to stand out, be memorable and be the one they not only want, but feel they need to live at! Being a landlord involves wearing many different hats, hopefully this landlord advice is helping you not only become a better landlord, but a wiser one as well.

Tenant Viewing – A Time Saving Landlord Tips

If you’ve been a  landlord for a while, you’ve likely been stood up at one time or another by a tenant who obviously values his or her time more than yours. Your time is important and if a tenant doesn’t show, you’ve just wasted some of that precious time. Would you like to learn how to prevent getting stood up in the future?

To help minimize this occurring here’s a tactic I was taught to preserve my time and minimize no shows. When scheduling viewings inform the potential tenant to call you an hour prior to the viewing time. Let them know if they don’t call, you won’t be there. Make sure they write your number down and you are very clear with them, you will not show up if you do not hear from them an hour prior.

Also, let them know if you do not answer to leave a message confirming they are coming. This way if you have a group all arriving close together (which you should if you booked crowds!!) you don’t get buried in calls or call backs!

The important part to remember from this is, if they don’t call you an hour before, but then call you at the meeting time wondering where you are, don’t rush over there! Reschedule and get them to follow the same process. If they can’t get it right the second time you may want to be concerned if they can follow any other instructions you have for them, such as the rules of the lease?

What you can learn from using these tactics are a)whether the potential tenant(s) are dependable, b) whether they can follow instructions (your lease is one big instruction set) and c) that you don’t have to waste your time if tenants cannot follow instructions.

Book Crowds – Build Excitement

If you’ve ever read a psychology books that talks about crowd behaviours, this is right up your alley. This also relates to the excitement you often see at auctions where bids get pushed up just because of the environment.

One warning with this, this particular landlord tip can be dependent on the state of the rental market and the property, but if you can schedule viewing periods for prospective tenants to all show up at once or in a certain time frame, you are set and you’ll find filling vacancies much easier.

Usually this is most effective the first week your ads are running and the majority of calls are coming in.  It becomes harder as the ad gets older and traffic and calls decrease, so it’s important to implement this immediately.

You can make this work by booking times when you will show the property and then booking viewings into those slots. As people call in, and after they get through your screening questions, then them know the two time slots you have available for viewing.

Showing Vacant Properties

I like to pick a Friday evening from 7 until 8 or 9 depending on the response to my ads, (OK, I don’t like to work Friday evening, but hey it’s a business and if I sacrifice one Friday to get it filled versus twenty different days, I’m happy!) and then a Saturday afternoon from 1 until 3. This covers off the best times for tenants to view, although I will also show units on a Saturday and Sunday as well if it works better for me. This also works best if there are two of you showing the property.

I also prefer to book the viewings in 10 to 15 minutes intervals depending on how many people are coming to view. This creates a sense of urgency as I make sure to tell people there are people before or after them, whatever the case may be and raises the concern of potential tenants that someone else may get the property instead of them.

Filling Tenant Vacancies Effectively

Whichever you choose, use the time you have with them to show the features of the property and get a feeling as to whether these prospects would make good tenants for you. It’s very handy if you have your list of questions along with the notes you had during your original pre-screening chat with them. You can re-ask the questions for clarity and to confirm you receive the same answer!

As your prospective new tenants view your property, you should be able to gather a sense of whether they will be a good fit for you or not. Once the tour ends, you can have them fill out one of your applications right on the spot, if you like them and they may be a good fit. Your goal should be to gather three or four good applications with each set of showings, but this really depends on the current rental market, your advertising and your times.

The other tactic I use with less than stellar potential applicants is to hand them the application (if they even ask for one) and ask them to fax it back to us. Realistically if they don’t fit the profile you have for your renter, you shouldn’t focus to much on their application. Unless someone was crunched for time the applications filled out in person receive first priority, plus you can review them while they are there and clarify any messy hand writing or unclear answers.

The biggest aspect of coordinating the showings like this is to get that excitement going, it’s all part of the complete system of putting new tenants in as quickly as possible and ensuring your time isn’t wasted. If you’d like to read more about how psychology can help you as a landlord, I’d really recommend you check out the book Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

I actually use several of the techniques in that book within my landlording business and even on this site. If you’ve read the book, can you tell me how I’m using it right on this page? The tactics have been helping me filling tenant vacancies for years!

Pre-Screening Tenants

As landlords (and as people in general), you need to understand your time is valuable and by pre-screening tenants, you can ensure you don’t waste any of that precious time.

One of my initial mistakes was believing I had to deal with every incoming query immediately and get that potential tenant into my property so they could see it as quickly as possible.

If you do this, let me tell you, you are already doomed to hating life as a landlord.

So, let me tell you how you can avoid that.

You need to qualify each and every call, email or form of communication you have with any prospective tenants. Sure you could ask the question in person, but why not do it prior to using up any of your precious time?

Start by creating your own list of questions you would ask each prospect if you met them at the property.

Hopefully you have specific questions you normally ask already, but if not, don’t fear, I have some for you. Or to make it even easier, you can download them here 7 Screening Questions

• How long were you hoping to sign a lease for?
  If you are looking for a long term tenant, and their answer is three months, well you may have already saved some time!
• How many people will there be renting the place?
  If it’s a two bedroom suite and they answer just the seven of us, well you may have already saved some time!
• When would you be moving in?
  If they answer in a couple of months and you need to fill it at the end of the month, well you know where I am going.
  If they answer tomorrow they better have a great story or you could be saddled with tenants that don;t prepare very well!
  – Side Note – our absolute best tenants came to us this way. They were in the process of moving here and the place that was supposed to be ready for them was a mess and their moving van was 12 hours behind them. They had an impeccable list of references and I called each and every on and had glowing responses back from them within two hours confirming everything. So listen to the story, but never forget your screening and if they are golden, it all works out!
• Have you already given notice to your current landlord?
  If they plan on skipping out early on their current landlord, what would stop them from doing the same to you?
• How long have you been at your current address? And the address before that? And before that?
  Your goal here is to ascertain if they only stay six months before moving on, or whether they are the long term equity building tenants us landlords love. On the other hand if you like meeting lots of new people every six months, skip this question!
• Are you currently just looking or serious about finding a place right away? 
  If they are just checking out places right now and won;t make a decision for a month or two, do you really want to rush across the city to show the property? Once again if you like meeting lots of new people, skip this question.
• The security deposit is XXX which is equal to one month’s rent. Both are due in cash prior to moving in, will this be a problem?
  If this is a problem for them, this should raise a red flag about their ability to pay rent in the future, or maybe they just aren’t ready to move into your place yet and you can let them move into another landlords place who doesn’t screen!

The real goal of all this screening is to obviously protect your time, but it also helps point out the more positive prospects you may have. If you have properties that take you thirty minutes to drive to (because you buy where tenants live, not where you live!) wouldn’t you rather know there is very little chance the people calling would ever rent from you before you met them?

These questions are just a guideline, you can easily create your own list of screening questions and run with them.

Just be sure to have the list always near the phone when you are running ads and be sure to keep appropriate notes. Then if they pass all your questions with appropriate answers, your ready for step 2, meeting the tenants at your property!

If you found this helpful, be sure to check out our 30 minute recorded webinar on screening tenants, you can find it under the Recorded Training Section, or you can go directly here to watch it, Screening Tenants Presentation.

Pre-screening tenants Advanced Tips

If you are technically inclined you can create a Google Doc with your screening questions and blanks spaces for applicants to fill out.

Then you can create a link to share with online applicants to speed up the process.