Tenant retention should be an important part of your investment strategy. When you can keep good tenants in place, you earn more money. Many Memphis rental property owners understand the financial drain that a vacancy imposes, but it’s easy to forget about those turnover costs. When one tenant moves out, you need to pay for maintenance, cleaning, and marketing before a new tenant moves in. Often, upgrades need to be made. You have to pay for utilities and landscaping and security. 

The best strategy is to avoid those turnovers, and to do that you have to retain your residents. 

We have a great record when it comes to tenant retention, and today we’re sharing some tips on how you can do a better job with this.

Providing a Positive Rental Experience in River City

The best thing you can do to keep good tenants is to provide a pleasant and stress-free rental experience. You can do this in a number of ways:

• Explain the lease carefully before they move in. Understanding expectations is a great way to begin a good relationship. 
• Communicate openly and transparently. Be available to your tenants, and responsive. 
• Check in once in a while. Tenants shouldn’t hear from you only when something’s wrong, like rent is late or the water needs to be shut off for repairs. 
• Provide thoughtful cards and gifts on birthdays and holidays.
• Share resources tenants may find helpful, such as local school information or new restaurant openings in the area. 

You should consider conducting routine surveys to find out what’s going well for your tenants and what they wish to see improved. This will give you ideas for how to keep those tenants renewing their lease agreements year after year.

Don’t Drop the Ball with Maintenance

An important part of retaining tenants is being responsive when it comes to maintenance. Emergencies will always require your immediate attention in order to keep the property safe and habitable, but if you want to make a good impression on your residents, you’ll treat routine repair requests with a sense of urgency as well.  

When you respond quickly to maintenance needs, tenants feel like you’re taking their needs seriously and that you care about their comfort and happiness. One of the main reasons that tenants leave rental properties is because repairs were not taken care of in a timely manner. Don’t lose tenants this way; make the repairs quickly. Not only does it retain tenants, it also protects the condition of your investment. 

Accept Online Rental Payments 

Tenants today are looking for ease and convenience. One way to provide that and to ensure your rent comes in on time is by providing an online payment platform so your residents can easily and securely pay rent online. We have a whole portal that our tenants use, and we know that independent landlords don’t have access to the same resources that Memphis property managers have. However, there are a number of online banking and payment platforms that can be used to implement online rental payments.

Make Strategic Rental Increases 

Raising the rent every year when the lease renews is typical, and most tenants in Memphis will expect a slight increase. Keep the amount reasonable and market-driven.  

When you have great tenants in place who pay rent on time every month and cause little trouble, you want to retain those tenants. These are the residents you’re hoping to renew year after year, so implement a small increase that matches inflation and the market rental values. You don’t want to be at the high end of what similar properties are renting for. Keeping a good resident in place is more valuable than a couple of extra dollars in rent every month. 

We can help you retain tenants. Contact our team at RiverTown Realty for any Memphis property management needs.