How To Be The Perfect Landlord……So That You Get The Perfect Tenants!

If you’re a landlord – even if you only rent out one property – you need to take care of all your responsibilities. Good landlords mean happy tenants who look after and respect your property. If you show that you look after your tenants from the very beginning, they’re more likely to stay in your house or flat and when they do leave, it should be in a good state of repair.

Start as you mean to go on. When you find a new tenant, spend some time with them and go through the ground rules. If you take the extra time to do this at the start, you’re saving yourself time later on. It’s also a good opportunity to get to know your new tenants.

Make sure that your property is in as good a condition as possible, as this justifies the rent you’re charging and usually means that the tenants will want to keep it that way. Get the grass cut, get the carpets cleaned and touch up paintwork. When people move house they’re busy enough as it is, so help them out! Many tenants complain about poor quality or old-fashioned furniture, so if you’re renting out your grandmother’s house and can’t afford to buy a houseful of new furniture, consider renting some pieces from a company.

Keep on top of maintenance yourself. A negligent landlord who takes his or her time to get things fixed is a major source of bad feelings. Bad feelings lead to late rent or property damage in some cases.

Keep in regular contact with your tenants. Give them a call after a few weeks to ask if everything’s OK. Arrange a visit to check the boiler and spend a bit of time with them. This allows you to see if they’re doing anything that you’re not happy about – if it’s a genuine mistake, you can set them on the right path.

Set up a reward scheme. A good example is giving tenants cinema tickets for paying the rent early, or getting them a carpet cleaner in if they expend their lease. A good landlord is hard to come by, and if your tenants’ friends get wind of you, you’ll do better business.

Think about sending birthday and Christmas cards to your tenants and their children, if they have any. Maybe even a small gift or voucher around the holiday season – people don’t expect this sort of treatment from landlords, so you’ll be way ahead of the others!

Get together a nice moving-in pack, including coffee, tea, long-life milk and some nutritious snacks. You should also include some change-of-address labels for your new tenants to send out. Make sure they also have your address.

Make sure your tenants know that they have to pay rent on time, but also bear in mind that life isn’t perfect and sometimes rent will be late. Have a contingency for late rental payments and keep it fair. Do you have another property that they could paint to pay off arrears? Don’t waive any rent, unless your tenants are in dire circumstances. You can be kind and firm.