Finding the perfect tenant isn’t always easy. Finding the wrong tenant, of course, comes with enormous consequences – which can, in many cases, lead to months of legal wrangling to remove the tenant and restore regular income stream from the property.
If you manage your own property, you understand how difficult it can be to find that perfect tenant. It’s not enough to take “the word” of the tenant. You need to be vigilant and inquisitive. This means conducting the necessary background checks that firmly establishes the viability of that tenant.
It means reviewing their rental history, their current income stream. How frequently are they moving from property to property? Have they produced credible, legitimate references? What is their work history look like? Are they established professionals who don’t jump from role to role? Have they committed any criminal offence?
Of course, this is just the beginning. And, when it comes to placing the perfect tenant in your rental, you need to review more than one tenant. Just like a job interview, the best person for the job isn’t always, and shouldn’t be, the first person you review.
You must take the time to sample several prospective tenants and choose the most optimum tenant based on your research and the information provided by the tenant.
What Makes the Perfect Tenant
At Triumph Property Management, we’ve successfully placed thousands of quality tenants for our clients. We understand what to look for and take the necessary time to ensure that the tenants in our database are verified to the maximum possible extent.
No stone goes unturned in our research.
What makes for the perfect tenant, then?
First – quality tenants have an established history of on-time rental payments.
Talk with past landlords about how the tenant has performed. Did they miss any rental payments? If they did, what were those reasons?
Talk with your tenant and crosscheck what you glean from the landlord versus what the tenant says.
Has the tenant lied or misled you about their rental payment history? If they have, you can safely assume they will deceive you about other matters in their quest to secure the rental.
Quality tenants maintain the property to the maximum possible extent.
Quality tenants are proactive. When a problem emerges, rather than let the problem fester and grow, they either attempt to resolve the problem themselves or they reach out to their landlord / property management company to fix the problem as soon as possible.
In other words, quality tenants manage the property as if it were their own. In this way, they also take care of the property – both its aesthetics and functional capability – as if they were living in their own property. That’s exactly what you’re looking for in a tenant – excellence in communication.
Excellent communication doesn’t mean that the tenant becomes a nag. Nobody likes a nag. But what they do is communicate the issues that matter and do so in a professional, diplomatic capacity that is neither dramatic nor burdensome.
Quality tenants, then, are firm adherents to the lease agreement.
They have read the agreement and understand their obligations. They act in accordance with these obligations, not least because they know their deposit hangs in the balance. They operate within the property on the basis that how they act may result in fees deducted from that deposit and act in a manner that maximizes the possibility that their deposit is returned.
Because of this, quality tenants take out the necessary protection. They know that their belongings may not be covered by the lease agreement and, for that reason, they take out additional insurance coverage.
Final thoughts
Finding the perfect tenant for your property doesn’t need to be difficult. Yes, it’s a time-consuming task. But it’s a task that, once you have invested the necessary time, can reap enormous dividends by avoiding potential legal / eviction disputes.
If you don’t have the time to hand, think about hiring a property management company to do the work for you. Property management companies conduct the necessary background research into each tenant – guaranteeing a consistent and solid income stream at the most optimum market rate.
Yes – property management costs – but, by placing optimum tenants and by marketing the property at the best market value – you can earn far more from your investment in the long-term!