Looking for a long-term tenant to stay in your rental property can be an overwhelming task. Employ effective Palm Harbor tenant retention strategies to find tenants that you can trust to remain for a longer time. Several tenants stay for the sense of community, others might stay for lower costs come lease renewal time. Others might be charmed by the gorgeous landscape or maintenance requests process being completed efficiently by a property management company.
Despite the reasons tenants might stay or go, landlords and property managers should consider the move-out costs associated with allowing a rental property to become vacant. This cost can be burdensome and cost you the profit you would have gained if you had retained the tenant or had a program ready to replace the tenant quickly. Having established Palm Harbor tenant retention strategies can help you have a close relationship with your tenants. For example, if one of your tenants was contemplating a move, they would trust you and let you know of their plans. Knowing this information in advance can give you substantially more time to find a replacement.
Customer Service
Among the first Palm Harbor tenant retention strategies to implement is to accurately understand what your tenants want. Several property managers are surprised to hear when tenants have unkind things to say about them. This can happen for many reasons. One reason could be your lack of communication with the tenant. Tenants want to be heard. While customer service is a key element in meeting the tenant’s needs, property managers often do not prioritize what really matters when talking with the tenants. Some property managers might have animosity toward such phone calls or interactions as it adds more work to an already busy day. Yet, what property managers should understand is that customer service is the most important part of the day.
Open Communication
Customer service can be a broad topic. Palm Harbor tenant retention strategies include thoroughly examining what your customer service experience means for your tenants. Ideally, customer service shouldn’t be viewed as a task. It involves communication and is a relationship building step. An effective, open relationship will not happen overnight. Upon signing your rental property lease, you are engaging in a continuous testing phase with your tenant. Tenants will test you to see how quickly you respond to requests, what your communication style is, how well your updating process works, and how available you are. Some tenants can be busy and unable to respond to phone calls. Instead, send texts or simple email reminders about things rather than gathering everything into one random long phone call.
Listen and Take Action
Palm Harbor tenants want their landlords to listen to them. Whether their side of the story is reasonable or not, there is a reason why they are reaching out to you. Listen to everything they have to say. A tenant will feel appreciated when you give them time to voice their opinions. Listening, as in any relationship, indicates that you care about more than just getting the job done. It shows that you care about them as a person. Try not to say, “no, we can’t do that” or starting out your sentence or responses with “no.” Make it a priority to provide a solution or potential compromise in case your solution will cost the tenant money or not be exactly what the tenant feels is right.
Complete in a Timely Fashion
Tenants tend to have a higher appreciation when service requests are solved swiftly and effectively. Even if you perform your job right and are open to the options they chose, if it is done over a period of several months, they may still be bitter about how long it took. When you accomplish all your tasks promptly, your trustworthiness as a property manager will increase, especially among your Palm Harbor tenants. You must allow time to specifically address the task even if you already have a busy schedule. If you do, you will realize that taking even just ten minutes to isolate a recent service request and resolve it would be beneficial to your relationship with the tenants and that they would stay around lease after lease.
An effective tenant retention strategy can be condensed into two things: attention and timeliness. These two things must be kept in mind when taking on service requests. There are so many opportunities you can build as you pay attention to the relationship aspect between you and your tenants. Interested in learning more about Real Property Management TradeWinds? Contact us online or give us a call directly at 727-400-4722 today!
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