Tips on How To Lease A Property

Knowing how to lease your home or investment property is essential to getting that cap rate you (should’ve) calculated when buying the property. In this video I go over the main stages you need to go through in order to attract lots of GOOD tenants to your rental home.

I’m going to show you all how we lease thousands of our units to ensure we get the best overall rents with the best tenants one can hope for… so as to reduce property damage and risks that are inherent with property rentals.

So you’ve got to find the tenants, vet the tenants…and collect rent from the tenants so that your rental property actually has some income.

Step one

Finding your future tenants. In order to do that you’ll need professional marketing photos of the property. While iphones are good cameras nowadays, that doesn’t always make the photos great. Consider proper lighting, staging, and when they still turn out terrible consider hiring a listing professional. 

If you enjoy brain damage and are trying to manage a rental property on your own, maybe try Thumbtack where you can get quotes from local vendors…but quality will always differ and you’ll need to get used to no shows.

Step two

Putting your rental listing online. You will want to put the listing on a few sites like:

Zillow, Apartments.com (if an apartment), and HotPads. You’ll also want a professional profile made for you. Good reviews from past tenants are the most valuable.

If those don’t work you can try Craigslist and Facebook local pages but things tend to get more colorful when you go that route.

Since we’re licensed real estate agents we can also put it on MLS where tenants are professionally represented and therefore, are usually more qualified.

Step three

This one is more advanced, but if you really want eyeballs on your listing you will want to rank well on google search and google local so when someone types in some version of Rental Listings In (City). And your site come up. 

Obviously this one is totally unreasonable if you’re trying to do it for your one house or even apartment complex, but hey that’s the plus of being represented by an established group with good marketing. We just get more traffic, which is why we average such a high occupancy.

Step Four

Okay so let’s just say you’ve got a line of people wanting to rent your property because your property is amazing and more importantly, you’re amazing…

But how do we know which of these people are qualified tenants, and which…aren’t?

Well you do the following:

A background check, credit check, rental history, employment history, eviction check. You’ll need a ceritifed background check company for that part. Usually costs around $20 per adult.

Step Five

But lets just say you found a person that passes with flying colors…on paper. So how do you ensure they actually pay you?

Sometimes it makes sense to require a smaller deposit, especially if the property is more C grade. This is most common with apartment complexes, just to keep the complex running. But perhaps offer a move-in special instead, like lower first months rent or last months rent (my favorite because it keeps them around). 

Well first up you’ll need a good rental lease. This is a longer conversation so check out my other videos for more on this one. But just make sure it’s vetted, enforceable, and follows landlord tenant laws.

Next part is a security deposit. Most of the time a 1 month security deposit is best but be sure to put it in a separate trust account, because there’s a lot of liability if you mess the deposit. 

Next is to have an enforceable late rent policy that they’ll dislike, but not so bad to where they won’t pay at all. We’ve found that $25-$50 late fees are usually best because the goal is to make money off the rent, not late fees. But it’s enough to incentivize people to get their rent in on time.

But this policy won’t mean a thing if you don’t set the tone correctly. Fair but firm is usually best. If you act like a pushover, they’ll likely try to push you over. And being a total jerk usually creates animosity and inexplicable holes in your drywall.

Admittedly, this tone part is tough even for me when it’s my own rentals. That’s why I tend to source it out. Being too close to late rent issues make you toss and turn at night no matter how callused you might be. It’ll float between feelings of “they’re lazy and taking advantage of your goodwill! To feelings of being ebenizer scrooge.”

Speaking of being scrooge, don’t be greedy with all those likes. Please donate a like to this video and drop a comment where you share your own rental stories. Either owner or tenant. Believe it or not, people love hearing these kind of stories…heck if I were savvy about it I’d start a show on Netflix called Leasing Sunset.

Okay so here’s a bonus tip that you guys should really know. It bores some people for some reason, but this tip is the root cause as to why our overall rent collection rate has remained pretty steady during covid when others dropped dramatically:

Licensed Property managers Leasing your property. 

It’s a really simple concept…that everyone ignores…including many of our competitors. But hey, it makes us look better so that’s nice.

If it’s just a leasing agent then they’re doing leases in volume just to survive so quality always gets hurt.

And if they’re unlicensed….well consider moving to Vegas because at least gambling with your money there is slightly more entertaining.

But the reason why the property manager being the person who also leases your property is important is because it starts that relationship with the tenant immediately and on the right foot. Starting early and having a good first impression is key and when people actually like each other, the rents are more likely to come in, less silly maintenance calls tend to happen, and the tenant feels more obligated to treat your property with some respect since they respect the manager.

Another thing to consider before getting a rental property or turning an existing property into a rental…is if it’s even worth it? Maybe selling instead of renting just makes more sense! That’s what I go over in this video. So hopefully I’ll see you there!

Disclaimer

Robert (Bob) Collopy – am not a CPA, attorney, insurance, or financial advisor and the information in these videos shall not be construed as tax, legal, insurance, construction, engineering, health and safety, electrical or financial advice.

IF stocks or companies are mentioned, Robert (Bob) Collopy MAY have an ownership interest in them — DO NOT make buying or selling decisions based on Robert (Bob) Collopy’s videos.

If you need ANY professional advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, contractor/electrician/engineer/etc. financial advisor or the appropriate professional for the subject you would like help with.

Linked items may create a financial benefit for Robert (Bob) Collopy. Any use of other media is by fair-use only.

Licensed With:

Fort Lowell Realty and Property Management Inc.

3020 E Camelback Rd #255, Phoenix, AZ 85016

https://www.flrpropertymgmtphoenix.com/