The market has been ruthless to many landlords as well as opened up new oppurtunities to acquire properties and make more money in real estate investments than every before.
When looking to lease out a property and find the best tenant you need to keep in mind the following and vary your strategy according to the local market you are working in and the type of property you have. It helps of course to have the help of a professional team with experience. However if you want to go it on your own here are some guidelines and strategies that will hopefully help you manage this process. Keep in mind we do have a marketing and tenant placement service for those who want to do the management themselves.
Certain areas will simply attract a different kind of tenant than other areas. It is important to understand various areas and the best marketing for each area as well as how to screen tenants.
For lower income areas (properties with rents $300 to $850) Craigslist along with aggressive handwritten signs (if necesary) might be the way to go for marketing. Also in many lower income areas you won’t find a tenant with good credit. You have to screen those tenants based on their eviction history, criminal history, landlord referrals and income. Make sure you check those references. We have a grading system for quickly grading low income renters. This is important because competition is brutal. If you can’t give an affirmative answer with in several hours your best in class low income tenant may have signed somewhere else already. In many lower income areas the competition is so fierce that you won’t be able to attract a tenant with out discounting the security deposit.
For higher end areas (properties with rents 900 to 2,500) the process is much different. Those properties need to be put into the MLS as well as numerous other websites including Craigslist (which is still very useful). Tenants may come through outside agents who represent them. The good news is generally there is a much higher quality pool of tenants to choose from. You may be able to require great credit and a full security deposit. However you have to sell good prospects as well as they have a choice. Rental prospects may in fact be interviewing and screening a landlord or management company just as much as the management company is screening them. They will make a choice based not just on rent and whether they like the property but also they want to know that a professional is managing the property and want assurance that the property is going to be maintained in a timely manner and their needs will be dealt with professionally (hint- We actively market to clients not just our properties but the assurance that we as a company have a system to take care of them).
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With more than 45 years of investment property management experience our expert team can relieve you of the burden of managing your rental property while saving you some serious money! Call us today at (440) 220-7300 to see how we can help you!
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