3 Steps to Tenant Retention

3 Quick Tips To Retain Your Tenants

1) Keep Your Rental Price in Line With The Market - 
This may seem obvious. However, we have seen instances where an owner will try to get too aggressive at renewal and ask for a price increase that is way out of line with the market. Most often, the tenants will recognize that the proposed rent increase is too much and they will bail. This can result with a loss of a good tenant.

2) Listen to Your Tenant's Concerns- 
Again, another obvious one but one would be amazed at the number of owners who do not do this. You can listen and not agree but you can at least consider what they are saying.

We see lack of listening by owners frequently in this situation.

The owner hires a cheap pool vendor to save 10-20 bucks a month. The vendor is terrible at maintaining the pool (frequently not showing up, not communicating with the tenants and letting the water get foul).

The tenants tells us what is going on. We relay this to the owner and let them know we can refer them to a reliable pool service. The owner does nothing and continues to use the same lousy vendor and aggravates the tenants.

3) Respond quickly to a needed repair-
Tenants get frustrated when needed repairs are not addressed quickly. 

90% of our owners are great about getting back to us when a large problem needs to be fixed. However, we have managed properties where the owner will delay a repair. Maybe this is due to financial issues or maybe even the owners are thinking if they avoid a response, the problem will magically disappear. 

This does nothing but agitate the tenants and these are typically the owners who get upset when the tenants do not renew their lease. 

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CC&R's and Tenants

As the Arizona weather heats up the landscaping drys out and HOA violations occur! Be prepared, be sure that your tenant is well advised of the HOA restrictions. But let's be honest we all know the tenant is not going to read the 90 page CC&R booklet. As a Phoenix Property Manager we have found that if you advise the tenant of the common sense violations such as weeds, over night parking and visible trash cans on a non-service day that is a long way towards prevention. The next step is to be sure the tenant is advised of any violations or warnings as they occur. The tenant should be immediately notified in writing and advised that a violation has occurred even if it is just a warning. If repeat violations are received a firmly worded letter should accompany the violation so that the tenant knows this is unacceptable. If your lease permits charge the tenants for any fines that may occur. It is a good idea to stay on top of both the HOA dues and any fines that occur to avoid any added late fees.

So again, be proactive advise your tenants of the common HOA violations such as trash cans visible on a non-service day, weeds, over-night parking in the street and stay in communication with both the tenant and HOA when an violations occur. 

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Landlords BEWARE!!!!

For the most part I never look at or read ANY online reviews....for RPM West Valley Phoenix or any other business for that matter because typically the happy customers are the ones that are too busy to be bothered by writing a review AND because a lot of companies (KYKO Roofing to name one) offers to discount customer's invoices after work has been completed if they are willing to write a good review about them either on google or the Better Business Bureau.  But the other day while doing market research for our current clients I came across the following RPM West Valley Phoenix review from our tenant A. Hall:

"RUN! These people are horrible and will nickle and dime you poor! Most unprofessional property management company I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. They do not value or respect anyone as a renter,or as a human being. I would rather eat broken glass then have to put up with there rude,unprofessional ways any longer. You people should be ashamed of yourselves. Nothing but lies,fines,penalty's ,Hidden charges. Do your self a favor and save the headaches. DON'T TRUST THIS COMPANY!"

So I am writing this blog so that all landlords can beware of this tenant and many like them.  A. Hall wrote this blog while sitting in his rental property of which he hadn't paid rent and was in the middle of being evicted. Apparently A. Hall didn't have the money to pay his rent to the property owner BUT he did have the money to keep his phone and internet going and instead of being out looking for a job he was spending his time writing non-factual reviews about a property manager who did their job by enforcing the lease agreement and swiftly moving for eviction when it became apparent that the tenant wouldn't be paying rent.....but I forgot these types of tenants think they should get to live for free as long as possible with the property owner covering the cost.  Also, I should mention that Aaron was a tenant with us for 18 months prior to be evicted but funny no online reviews from him until the day he is in court to be evicted!

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Summer Property Damage Prevention

In the summer, there are three frequent repairs that we see at the properties we manage in Arizona.  These repairs can be costly but the good news is that they are all avoidable. The first problem we see occurs with the A/C system drain line.

The A/C system's drain line is usually located between the ceiling and the roof.  The evaporator coil within the system's air handler produces condensate.  The moisture produced from the evaporator coil is set up to be drained through a primary drain pan line. A problem occurs when this pan clogs as moisture from the system mixes with the dirt in the air and the system.

When the primary pan clogs, most systems are set up with a secondary pan to handle the overflow.  However, the secondary pan can also get clogged and when this happens there is no place for the condensate to go except out of the pan and into the ceiling.  We have also seen systems set up poorly so that the secondary pan does not work or the pan is not level which leads to frequent clogs.

Once the system starts to overflow, damage to the ceiling area can occur quickly.  This leads to costly drywall repairs especially if the leak isn't noticed early by the tenant.

This problem is avoidable at your Arizona rental units.  Frequent changing of the air filters helps but can you really depend on your tenant to change the filters with the frequency they need to?

The best thing to do is have the drainage system professionally cleaned out.  At the time this is done, you can put in a condensate safety switch into your drainage system.  This device is installed at the secondary pan and is a float.  When the water level gets to a certain point in the pan, it shuts the system off.

The solution is inexpensive and if and when the safety switch shuts the system off, the drains can be cleaned out.

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