As a single-family rental homeowner in Lexington, your ideal tenant is one who chooses to stay for some years. Frequent vacancies can mess up your cash flows and even lead to losing money on a property. But in fact, by implementing effective lease renewal strategies, you can ensure a steady rental income, bestowing you with a sense of financial security and promoting confidence in your investment.
Apart from choosing the right tenant, there are multiple other things that you can – and should – do to encourage your tenant to stay longer. Adopting these methods, you may find it easier to keep your monthly rental income steady per annum.
Begin the renewal process early
One of the first ways to improve tenant retention is to secure that you have good communication with them. This comprises of communicating about their intentions to renew or not. It’s vital to initiate addressing the issue of lease renewal well before it ceases, granting you a sense of control and proactiveness in managing your rental property.
In a lot of States, landlords must give at least 30 days’ notice. Though, it’s even better to start the renewal process earlier than that. Tenants commonly don’t delight in feeling pushed, cheated, or forced to decide on a lease renewal with less than a month to find things out.
If you try to wait until their lease renewal is right up against the deadline, you may lose a tenant who may have otherwise lingered and stayed in the home.
Incentivize tenants to renew their lease
Other than good communication, some of the most competent lease renewal strategies offer tenants an incentive to stay. The key is to provide something valuable to your tenants and make them feel respected.
As an illustration, your tenant is hesitating to renew for a full year. Take into account providing them with more adaptable terms, in particular a 6-month lease, or give them a discount for signing a longer-term lease, usually 24 months or more.
Another idea is to offer your tenant a renewal at their current rate. This may be specifically inviting if rental rates have gone up a lot in your local market. While this may not necessarily be viable, it’s something to keep in your lease renewal toolbox. Tenants who feel like they have options are more likely to want to stay where they are.
Upgrade your property to keep tenants
Another process to incentivize your lease renewal is to offer to make improvements to the property. This could be composed of modernizing appliances, repainting, or integrating new fixtures. This can extend them an added incentive to stay and indicates that you are committed to maintaining a high-quality rental property.
Make it a point that your tenant knows which aspects of the property will be updated to render them further incentive to stay. For yet more proactive approach, perform minor improvements to the property a few months before the lease expires.
By actively maintaining the property while the tenant is living there, you are disseminating an evident message that you care not only about your rental home and even more about their well-being. This sense of responsibility and care can seriously contribute to tenant retention and your overall success as a rental homeowner.
Provide online access to renewal documents
One final thing, if you are still chasing down your lease renewals in person, deem swapping to a more efficient digital approach. A large number of tenants fancy being able to do almost everything online, and lease renewals are no different. By bestowing online access to renewal documents, you can offer your tenants the convenience of reviewing and signing their lease from anywhere, at any point in time; this can streamline the renewal process.
Uncomplicatedly offering your tenants the ability to complete lease renewal documents online greatly optimizes your chances of renewal. Furthermore, taking your business online will allow you to track your renewal rates and other relevant data better. With improved information, you can more effectively choose the lease renewal strategy that will work ideally for your situation and tenants.
Consistency in your lease renewals may take much time and effort, but it’s worth it. By grasping and implementing several effective lease renewal strategies and approaching your tenants with flexibility and planning, you can highly improve your chances of keeping that great tenant in your rental home.
Do you like the income of a rental property but strive and struggle to uphold all the tasks involved, like renewal? Contact Real Property Management Bluegrass to communicate with a Lexington property manager and hear what we can do for you! Call us at 859-684-2054 or contact us online.
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