Planning to lease your property? It’s a great way to earn income on passive real estate investments. If you find the right tenant for your property, the landlord-tenant relationship can be efficient and straightforward. However, don’t overlook the process of finding that ideal qualified tenant. Placing an incompatible tenant can cause loss of rental income, higher repair costs, decreased ROI on your property, and an overall headache as a landlord.
In order to find the perfect tenant, there are a lot of innovative methods to include in your leasing process. With an ever changing rental market, you have to be prepared for everything. From pricing your property correctly to marketing your property to the correct audience, there are a ton of different factors to implement into your leasing process. Great potential tenants will migrate towards great rental properties. These properties have smooth leasing practices in place to make the process as easy as possible for them as renters. If you want to lease your property or you think rental property management is in your future, it’s important to be prepared to face the process head-on. Here are six of the best leasing practices to keep in mind and prepare you for success as you get ready to lease your investment property.
1. Invest in Professional Photography and Videography
While an in-person or virtual tour is the best way to get to know a home and picture yourself in it, many prospective tenants will not even reach that stage without professional-grade photography and videography.
Among the other details of the home included within your listing, it’s important to provide a wide range of professionally taken photos and videos shot with the right angles and lighting.
Details like subject composition and brightness in a picture or video can make an incredible home look less than its best, and you want to make sure that your property is being positively represented to all of your prospective tenants.
Digital staging is another great way to provide prospective tenants with an idea of what the home looks like furnished. AllView Real Estate provides every listing with at least one digitally staged photo in order to help renters see how they could view themselves in the home. It’s a great addition to your listing, and will separate your property from most others on the market. Check out their current available listings here for an example.
2. Provide a Virtual Tour Option
Once your potential tenants have perused the high-resolution pictures and videos included in your listing, many of them will want to schedule a tour. A tour of the property allows interested parties to get a real sense of what the property is like in person and what their lifestyle might be like if they signed a lease and moved in.
As the owner or property manager, you will likely be responsible for scheduling and giving tours of the home. While many prospective tenants will want to see the property in person, some may need or want a virtual touring option for a variety of reasons.
By providing a virtual tour, you can avoid cutting off the potential perfect tenant from expressing deeper interest in your property. Virtual tours can be created by taking in-depth video footage of what it’s like to walk through the home. 3D tours are also a great way to allow potential tenants to “walk” through the entire property without actually going to an in-person tour. 3D and virtual tours are a great addition to your listing to serve those who may work long hours, are out of state looking to move to the area, or have other time restrictions to their schedules.
3. Efficiently Screen Tenants with Advanced Reporting
Every property owner or manager wants to find the best possible tenant for their property. Usually, that means a tenant who has a good credit history and no past issues with landlords. It’s also important that they can prove with income statements that they’ll be able to pay rent on time and in full.
That’s why it’s important to use advanced reporting to screen your potential tenants during the application process. Make sure that you are quick and efficient with this process in order to not miss out on potential tenants.
4. Offer Weekend and Evening Showing Appointments
Since finding the right tenant is so crucial, it’s also important to keep your options open when scheduling tours and showings. There are so many houses for sale or lease at any given time, and you want to make sure you’re catering to the needs of your prospective tenants.
While you’re in the process of leasing your property, you may need to work some extra hours and keep your weekends and evenings free for showing appointments. If you refuse to work weekends, you may end up missing out on the perfect tenant.
5. Respond Quickly to All Parties
Good tenants tend to have a sense of good property managers and landlords. Therefore, the right renter for your property might get cold feet if you don’t respond to them consistently and efficiently throughout the process.
Open communication is key to a successful lease, and that starts with the application process. Make sure you prioritize giving quick responses to all potential tenants as well as any commercial property management companies you might be working with.
6. Take A Sales Approach
You may be leasing a home instead of selling it outright, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t leveraging a sales deal. In order to get the right tenant to sign a lease, you’ll have to sell them on the quality of the property as well as the quality of life they could enjoy when they live there.
7. Know the Laws
Before listing a property for lease, make sure that you are knowledgeable and updated on all the laws regarding your specific city and state rental regulations. Finally, have an up-to-date and appropriate lease agreement in place for your specific property. They may differ from property to property based on the particular lease terms, so ensure that you are using the correct one to keep yourself and your tenant protected and compliant. There are so many small details that go into successfully leasing a property. That’s why you should enlist the help of the best property management companies to streamline the process and ensure your success.
A Successful Lease Starts with the Right Agent
As a property owner or manager, finding the perfect tenant to sign a lease is of the utmost importance. This starts with having access to all the major leasing sites. This process may be costly and time consuming to an individual owner, but at AllView Real Estate, we have access to list a property to all top rental sites with the click of a button. The team at AllView Real Estate are experts in Orange County property management and work hard to pair the right tenant with the right property owner every time. From apartments and luxury homes to investment properties of all kinds, the professionals at AllView are here to help you optimize your rental. Servicing Los Angeles County, Orange County, and San Diego County, connect with us online or call us at (949) 400-4275 to see how we can implement our advanced leasing practices and manage your rental properties so you don’t have to!