Landlord Tips – Filling Vacancies 1 of 5 in a Series of Tips

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I seemed to get a pretty good response with the last series of landlord tips I put together from our own experience and from information we acquired since joining REIN. To extend the series I have put together some specific information for landlords on some tips and techniques to fill vacancies. Hopefully this helps guide a few more people to a better experience as a landlord and to possibly help curtail a few more negative experiences that could show up without following these tips.

Every landlord no matter how good they are has a vacancy at some time.   Let’s start the series with;

Pre-Screening Tenants

If you blindly accept every call or query about your property and madly dash off to show your vacant unit with the thought that this could be the one, you are already doomed to hating life as a landlord. You need to qualify each and every call, email or form of communication you have with any prospective tenants. Sure you could ask the question in person, but why not do it prior to using up any of your precious time?

Start by creating your own list of questions you would ask each prospect if you met them at the property. Hopefully you have specific questins you normally ask already, but if not, don’t fear, I have some for you.

• How long were you hoping to sign a lease for?
  If you are looking for a long term tenant, and their answer is three months, well you may have already saved some time!
• How many people will there be renting the place?
  If it’s a two bedroom suite and they answer just the seven of us, well you may have already saved some time!
• When would you be moving in?
  If they answer in a couple of months and you need to fill it at the end of the month, well you know where I am going.
  If they answer tomorrow they better have a great story or you could be saddled with tenants that don;t prepare very well!
  – Side Note – our absolute best tenants came to us this way. They were in the process of moving here and the place that was supposed to be ready fro them was a mess and their moving van was 12 hours behind them. They had an impeccable list of references and I called each and every on and had glowing responses back from them within two hours confirming everything. So listen to the story, but never forget your screening and if they are golden, it all works out!
• Have you already given notice to your current landlord?
  If they plan on skipping out early on their current landlord, what would stop them from doing the same to you?
• How long have you been at your current address? And the address before that? And before that?
  Your goal here is to ascertain if they only stay six months before moving on, or whether they are the long term equity building tenants us landlords love. On the other hand if you like meeting lots of new people every six months, skip this question!
• Are you currently just looking or serious about finding a place right away?
  If they are just checking out places right now and won;t make a decision for a month or two, do you really want to rush across the city to show the property? Once again if you like meeting lots of new people, skip this question.
• The security deposit is XXX which is equal to one month’s rent. Both are due in cash prior to moving in, will this be a problem?
  If this is a problem for them, this should raise a red flag about their ability to pay rent in the future, or maybe they just aren’t ready to move into your place yet and you can let them move into another landlords place who doesn’t screen!

The real goal of all this screening is to obviously protect your time, but it also helps point out the more positive prospects you may have. If you have properties that take you thirty minutes to drive to (because you buy where tenants line, not where you live!) wouldn’t you rather know there is very little chance the people calling would ever rent from you before you met them?

These questions are just a guideline, you can easily create your own list of screening questions and run with them. Just be sure to have the list always near the phone when you are running ads and be sure to keep appropriate notes. Then if they pass all your questions with appropriate answers, you will be ready for tip #2!

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