Tenants are people too.
Great businesses treat their clients well.
Your rental portfolio is your business and your tenants are your clients.
You can do a ton of work to run a successful rental business.
Yet, if you fail to treat the tenants with respect so much of that work will be undone.
We love a process here at Table.
We believe in setting up your tenants for success, by doing things like like implementing wellness checks and move-in/move out checklists.
No matter the class of investment you have, you’d do well to remember tenants are humans.
They have families and friends and a job just like you. It’s hard to remember that when tenants are upset, or when you’re getting bombarded with emails asking for approval, or funding, or when considering getting another estimate.
I have several rental houses. I know the pain of a multiple $100 dollar repairs or spending thousands of dollars on HVAC. There are times I would love to get multiple estimates to save money. But there are times when it’s just not feasible or realistic to get numerous quotes.
When a tenant’s house is flooding with raw sewage it’s not as simple as just getting another bid.
It means waiting another 24-48 hours for another plumber to come look at the issue.
Then another another 24+ hours for them to put together the estimate.
Then your property manager has to get your approval.
Then they collect your payment.
Then they can schedule.
So even if we only do that two more times to get three estimates, a 2-4 day repair turns into a 7-12 day repair.
This entire time the tenant may not have the ability to use any water in their home.
They can’t wash their clothes, wash dishes, wash their hands, or take a shower.
So while it might save some money, the position it puts another human in sucks and the “clean up” cost is exponentially higher.
A damaged relationship with your tenant costs more. Tenants who are upset or feel like owners (or property managers) don’t care about the home or aren’t going to fix things. They are less likely to report little things that turn into bigger issues.
For example, one time a tenant didn’t report that their sink was not sealed. Most people might not even notice it, but the caulking where the sink met the countertop had an eroded away over the 60 years the house existed. The tenant never thought to report it. Well unbeknownst to everyone the water splashing up when they did dishes and was seeping in the unsealed area and damaging the 60 year old cabinets. No one had any idea until the cabinet gave way revealing that the cabinets, and the sheetrock behind them, were all covered in mold and completely deteriorated.