As a landlord, obtaining a tenant for your residential property is one challenging task that demands long-term experience in the real estate sector. Retaining the tenants for a long period is something else. To attract long-term tenants you will need to up your game and stay ahead of the curve.
You need long-term tenants in your residential property to maintain a steady cash flow.
We have looked into ways of obtaining tenants and the main factors that different successful landlords consider when renting. This guide will help you attract tenants and help you master the art of earning their loyalty for years or even decades. Here is how to attract long term tenants in Miami.
How Can I Attract Long-Term Tenants Who Stay?
Attracting tenants to a residential property takes us back to the basics of landlord-tenant relationships. It’s all about the impression that you make to your prospective clients.
If you’re starting your property investment journey in Miami, we recommend a thorough D-Y-O-R (Do-Your-Own-Research) before setting shop. This will help you understand how the Miami Real Estate market works and what will attract long-term tenants.
These are basic practices but may be overlooked by most landlords. This article will highlight and show you how different practices are important. It will also teach you how to carry out important practices to attract and retain tenants without insulting your intelligence.
Let’s start with how you can attract long-term tenants in Miami.
How and Where to Find Tenants for Your Property Investment
First, you have to understand the type of people you prefer to be your ideal tenants. Understand how you interact with different kinds of people as your tenants. You can start by breaking down the groups of people by generation/age group.
- Generation Z Tenants: The youngest generation of individuals, 25 years and below. Most of them are students.
- Millennials: The youth and adults in their forties. They mostly dwell in families suited for small families with access to offices or professional centers.
- Generation X: The age group of older adults. Most of them prefer living outside of town. This age pool mostly desires single-family houses/Duplexes.
With this knowledge and other personal factors, you should be able to define your target tenant pool.
After understanding your target audience, you should know where to get fish before setting the bait. In this era, there are more ways to obtain clients. You can choose the right way to reach your target audience.
Where to Find Tenants Who Stay Longterm – Property Investment
- Have a website to tap into the online market. Tenants searching the website for properties should be able to find your website when they Google houses in a specific area.
- If having a website is difficult, have your house listed by a property manager. They have the properties listed and displayed for online searchers. Property managers do an amazing job in marketing the properties of their clients.
- Have social media accounts and post about your properties with all basic information on the posts. Have contacts on the post to enable interested individuals to reach out and book an open house visit.
- Have Realtors bring potential tenants to your property. Realtors will source clients for you and take them to an open house for viewing.
Now you know where to look for your target audience. You should also know what tenants mostly look for when searching for a house to move in.
What do Tenants Look for When Renting a Property?
There are common factors that all house-seeking individuals look for in the house-hunting process. Let’s look at them:
- Condition of the property
- Available space
- Location
- Available parking per unit
- Outdoor space
There are extra aspects that attract long-term tenants when house hunting.
What attracts long-term tenants look for when house hunting?
- Social amenities: Professional tenants prefer staying in areas with access to the necessary social amenities. For instance, a teacher would want to stay near the school where he/she works. Doctors would want to stay in areas with access to hospitals where they work with ease. These professionals don’t move from house to house a lot.
- Services. These involve maintenance and repair. Long-term tenants are attracted to good services.
- Property Leasing terms.
- Previous Client Reviews about your property
- References from other individuals. References are an ideal way to attract long-term tenants. When an existing tenant has an amazing experience in your property, he/she is very likely to refer his/her friends, colleagues, or relatives to you.
Now you have an individual from your target audience interested in your property, what next? You need to screen the interested individuals to choose the right tenants carefully.
Tenants screening to point out high-value tenants
When screening your tenants, there are key aspects you should look for. Namely:
- Criminal record
- Report from the previous landlord
- Career
These are the main aspects to look for. You can customize the list and look for more personal aspects but important to your prospective tenants’ residential records.
This whole process seems long and tedious if handled by a single person. You can have a thorough property manager to handle this task for you.
If you have a property in South Florida, Threshold is a trusted property manager on the ground that would guarantee you results judging from the reviews they have.
After you’ve screened your tenants and they have moved in, your relationship with the tenant will determine how long they stay in your property.
It’s called landlord-tenant relations. Mastering this will greatly influence your cash flow as a landlord over a long period. Let’s look at the fundamentals of enhancing a healthy landlord-tenant relationship.
Fundamentals of Attracting and Retaining Tenants – Landlord Tips
Here are some of the basics of attracting long term tenants and how to keep them.
- Make tenants feel welcome from day one.
- Be reachable and responsive for maintenance and repair.
- Have accommodative policies.
- Respect tenant’s privacy
- Have high-security features on your property.
- Have a variety of payment options and reasonable rent increases.
Time to discuss these fundamentals deeper, shall we?
How to Attract and Retain Tenants in Miami, South Florida
1. Make tenants feel welcome from day one
Making your potential tenant feel at ease when they come for an open house would increase their chance of returning as long-term tenants.
Simple gestures like offering treats during house visits or talking to them in a friendly note while answering all their questions will tell them a lot about your personality. Most people like interacting with warm and welcoming people. Simple rapport will attract long-term tenants and retain them.
2. Be Transparent with your tenants
Transparency should also be implemented from day one. Don’t lie to them about anything during the house tours when potential residents visit. Telling them the truth will express an exact picture of what to expect, thus avoiding future disappointment.
Also, be positive with your tenants about changes being made in your lease agreement. Remember to inform them of a favorable time duration.
3. Be reachable and responsive for maintenance and repair
Emergencies can happen at any time. For instance, there could be a bust pipe in the kitchen at 5 pm. A tenant would contact you immediately to avoid damage to his/her household items.
You should be easy to contact and always try to respond within a reasonable time convenient to your tenant.
4. Respect your tenant’s privacy
As much as a house inspection is important to your property, you should consider your tenants’ privacy every time you conduct a house inspection.
You should give them an alert early before the inspection date or book a date that they are most comfortable with.
5. Have accommodative policies
Most tenants love pets even when they don’t have pets. Making your policies accommodate pet owners would increase the number of potential tenants you could convert to long-term tenants.
A tenant might develop an interest in dogs after a few months on your property. If your policy doesn’t allow pet keeping, they would have to vacate to other premises that allow pet keeping.
6. Have high-security features on your property
Security is a major concern for all tenants. Have your windows and doors fitted with high-quality locks. Place a security camera facing the entrance and back of the premises. The perimeter should also be secured if the house is standalone.
Although Miami is a low-crime city with very few break-in cases, securing your house will make your tenants feel safe and extend their stay.
7. Have various payment options and reasonable rent increments
Different tenants use different payment methods to settle their rent. In this era, most people use online payment methods like PayPal and Venmo wallets.
This doesn’t mean that traditional payment methods like cheque deposits and bank transfers are being abandoned. Including all these payment methods will give your clients the choices to pay their rent; they will always pick a convenient one.
If the real estate market is experiencing inflation, you should inform your client early and allow room for negotiation or quote a reasonable price increment that would be friendly even among competitors.
A final thought on attracting and retaining a tenant over a long duration
Since revenue through rent from a landlord’s property is the only way for your investment to motivate you, make sure the property gives you a steady cash flow, and the only way you can do this is by attracting and building a good tenant-landlord relationship through the aspects discussed above.
All the aspects above are independent but equally important. Observe all the factors above and integrate them for best results.
How Landlords Attract and Retain Long-term Tenants: FAQs
How do I increase my tenant’s rent?
Keep your tenants informed about a possible price increment before the increment date. Consider their thoughts and come up with a reasonable increment percentage.
How do I target the right audience in real estate?
Understand the age and profession of your desired tenants and implement the right tenant fishing procedures to reach the specific audience. For instance, you can have posters around a college if your target tenants are students from the college.
How can I build credibility in real estate?
You have to be reliable and offer the best product and services in the real estate market that is desirable even amongst your competitors.
What are the 4 keys to build credibility in the real estate market?
- Have Integrity
- Have specific intent
- Capability to deliver
- Deliver splendid results.
