Happy Thanksgiving!
With the publishing of our Halloween post titled “Tenant Horror Stories” we have gotten tons of feedback from readers wondering if those stories are true…they are. But the reality is that those tenants represent only a small percentage of the tenants we deal with. The truth is that most tenants are great, they pay their rent on time, they take good care of the property and in some cases they actually help increase the property value and refer other tenants. So in order to balance the scales a bit we decided to tell you about a few tenants who we love and the awesome things they do.
The Landscaping Appreciator
One of our favorite tenants, Sean, was a landscape lover who preferred to mow his own lawn instead of having a company do it. Our previous post “What Monthly Services Should I Include With My Rental Property?” discussed why we feel it is best for you to pay for a lawn service because many tenants do not own the equipment or have the desire to keep the lawn in good shape regularly. But Sean was not just any tenant. He was actually studying to be a landscape architect and he had a real passion for the work. So much so that he rented this property specifically because he felt it needed a bit of a landscaping face lift. Once he showed his plans to the property owner she was all in. He paid for it all and created a masterpiece of a front yard with Japanese boxwood lining the front walk and beautiful rock accents. The property looked so good that one day we got a call from a neighbor who had just moved to the neighborhood (and paid a premium for the house) who asked us who the landscaper was so they could do their house also!
A Friend Indeed
Whenever we find a good tenant we always let them now that they can get a discount on one month’s rent for referring a tenant who clears the screening process. The idea is that good tenant usually hang around with other good tenants so it is a great way to further vet new tenants. Of course we always clear this with the property owner and if they have additional rental properties that are vacant we try to put them in their properties first but the timing doesn’t always work out. In that case we can find them one of our properties, since we have hundreds of properties that we manager there are always a few vacancies at any given time. Well this was awesome news to a tenant name Yolanda who had tons of friends that were all in their late 20’s and early 30’s who hadn’t settled down to purchase a property yet. She actually holds the records for numbers of successful referrals as she was able to find us 6 amazing tenants over the course of a few years! We placed two of them into other homes owned by her property owner and the rest we found places for in our inventory.
The Property Informant
We recommend quarterly inspections of your rental property but any good property inspector knows that the best property inspector is the person who is actually living in the home. When you are living in a home you have a front row seat to all the different things happening to the property and you will see and hear things that most others won’t. A perfect example of this was one of our tenants named Joseph. He is an aviation mechanic for a major airline at MIA so he has a nack for noticing when things aren’t quite right. He was renting an older home in Miami Springs and one day he noticed that the wood floor was creaking in a certain spot. The property had a crawl space so he took a look under the house and saw the problem: A pipe was leaking water onto on of the main support beams for the home and the beam was starting to rot. To make matters worse the beam in question was actually the one that ran under the main bathroom and supported the bath tub. If the rot had gone unnoticed for much longer the beam would have been compromised and poor Joseph may have been taking a bath when the floor gave way and could have been seriously injured. But luckily he notified us and the property owner agreed to fix the issue immediately and avoid not only much more expensive repairs down the road but also avoid the potential for a lawsuit!
So there you have, in the end tenants are people just like you and I. If you treat them fairly and with respect they will almost always do the same for you.At Real Property Management Miami we pride ourselves in our customer service to both our property owners and our tenants and we find that this results in exceptional experiences for everyone involved. So buy more properties for more great tenants and give us a call so we can make sure they (and you) stay happy!
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
