Property Management Maven

Since most of the rental properties in my management portfolio are high-end (rent over $1,000/mo), I am amazed at how some prospects follow the directions, read the instructions and get it right the first time, while some want to short cut the process and waste their time and spin their wheels.

Although my properties appear VACANT on my website, they are actually occupied and the current residents have given their notice so that the property will be available for re-renting on the date specified in our listing.

If a prospect needs an area rental home in July, they should be looking at those homes that will be vacant and available in that timeframe.  Wasting time looking at a property that is available NOW  - 3 or 4 months BEFORE their planned move-in date and then asking if I can hold the property shows a certain lack of logic as applied to the landlord-tenant relationship.  I have actually asked a prospect "nicely" why I would hold a property for them for 3 months in order to loose $5,000 in rental income......I saw the "eye roll" over the phone.

Likewise, if the listing photos and floor plan show 3 bedrooms, why ask me if there is a 4th bedroom?

When there is no photo of a garage, no garage shown in the floor plan, no garage checked in the listing information, trust me, there is no garage....I'm sure.

I love it when they ask if I have seen the property....DU-AH!!!  Maybe it is because I answer the phone or respond promptly to their e-mail inquiry that they think I am "the help"....their treatment of me thinking I am "the office help" is very telling.  Some insist on speaking with Mr. Gibson.  It used to be fun saying...."I'm HE"...now, I just say "I'm Mrs. Gibson".....further along in our relationship they should figure out I am female.

When they don't get the responses they want and tell me they are a would-be client, I advise them that my property owners are my clients, my residents are my customers and I start screening for my customers "at first contact"....sometime they get it, most of the time they don't.

How a prospective tenant treats me in our phone conversation; in their e-mail inquiry; the questions they ask; the information they have already gotten from my website ALL show not only how interested they are in my property listing but how good they will be as residents during our 12+ month relationship.

Prospects NEVER get a second chance to make a GOOD first impression.

A local Realtor referred a  property owner to me this week. He acknowledged that he was deciding if he wanted to sell his home now or rent it when they left the area.

I previewed the home with him after reviewing past sales/features/description on our local MLS and tax essessor records...the owners have done many upgrades including adding some much needed storage and a home office. A perfect rental home for UVa graduate families or new-hires at UVA.

He acknowledged that they had down payment to buy in the area where they are moving and keep their local home. Then I asked, since they had already talked to a Realtor about selling options, if they can buy a new home of equal or greater value than their current home? His answer was that the new home would cost less.....I then suggested he investigate the tax consequences of buying a home of lesser value AND that the option of selling their current home in 2 years after renting it for 2 years in a potentially HIGHER sales market would be the WIN/WIN. 

In this scenario, they could keep their new home as a rental and purchase a newer/larger home in 2 years and eliminate the potential for tax consequences for roll over replacement homes....they BUY in the slower/lower market and SELL in the higher market and have the cost of keeping their current home covered by the rental income - a WIN/WIN in a slow sales market.