It’s no secret that keeping your rental occupied means keeping a steady stream of rental income flowing. But having low resident turnover has other benefits for landlords too. Longer-term tenants tend to be stable, pay their rent on time, and minimize the costs and maintenance efforts associated with tenant turnover.
When your rental sits empty between tenants, you have to invest time and money into maintaining the property, marketing the unit to new potential tenants, keeping the utilities turned on for showings, and screening new potential tenants all while sacrificing rental income.
To improve your retention rate, it’s helpful to understand why tenants leave in the first place.
Why Tenants Leave Their Rentals
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Geographic Mobility Data, the three primary reasons for moving between 2017 and 2018 were related to Housing, Family, and Employment. More specifically:
Housing
- Wanting a new or better home
- Wanting a cheaper home
- Wanting to purchase a home rather than rent one
- Wanting to live in a better neighborhood
Family
- Wanting to establish their own household (e.g. moving out of parents’ house)
- Experiencing a change in marital status (e.g. getting married or divorced)
Employment
- Accepted a new job or job transfer elsewhere
- Wanting to be closer to work or have an easier commute
- Looking for new work elsewhere or lost their job
Other common reasons for moving
- Frequent maintenance issues (especially if they are poorly fixed or remain unresolved)
- Problems with neighbors
Although you can’t predict when a tenant will have to move for a new job in a new city or to a bigger rental for a growing family, there are certain things you can do to minimize your tenant turnover. You can encourage resident retention by:
1. Being Responsive
Responding to tenants’ requests in a respectful and timely manner will put you in good standing with your residents. Your tenants are less likely to renew their lease with you if you wait long periods of time to respond to requests, respond with hostility, or worse, don’t respond at all.
2. Handling Maintenance Issues Swiftly
Don’t let maintenance issues fall by the wayside. Dealing with maintenance requests can often feel like a juggling act. You’ve got tenants reaching out, schedules to coordinate, and service professionals to contact. It can get hectic, but Apartments.com has the solution. With our online maintenance platform, tenants can submit maintenance requests online. We notify you when you have a request, and you can easily update your tenants as the repair progresses. You can even attach receipts, upload notes, and track expenses for the repairs. You and your tenants can even share images and videos. Keeping everything in one place makes it easy to keep track of repairs, how often something is requiring repair, and how future repairs might impact your budget.
3. Providing Routine Maintenance
One way to prevent maintenance issues in the first place is to perform routine maintenance. Be aware of aging appliances and any other aspects of your rental that need tending to. Whenever you do perform routine maintenance, be sure to provide your tenant with appropriate notice beforehand.
4. Resolving Qualms with Neighbors
If tenants in neighboring units are having issues, step in to help resolve those issues. There are plenty of ways you can help in various scenarios, from requiring quiet hours and enforcing rules stated in lease agreements to mediating discussions between neighbors and coming up with new solutions that satisfy all parties involved.
5. Making Sure Your Rental Is Competitively Priced
Look at rentals similar to yours in the area. See how your property stacks up to the competition. When you list your rental on Apartments.com, we provide you with free rent comparison reports. This valuable information gives you a clear understanding of the market so you can price your rental right, compare your property’s value to other similar properties, and review market conditions like the average days on the market and the average rent rates. In addition to this valuable information, your rental home will appear on all 12 of our network sites to help you reach potential renters where they’re searching. By listing on Apartments.com, you can reach millions of renters and fill your vacancy fast.
6. Maintaining Amenities
Keep up with any amenities that could be seen as selling points for the rental. Make sure the pool is clean, the lawn is mowed, and the laundry facilities are all functional.
7. Allowing Pets
The Humane Society of the United States says that 72 percent of renters have pets, yet renters often have trouble finding rental housing that welcomes their pets. Allowing pets in your rental, with minimal restrictions, affords you a larger pool of qualified applicants to choose from. Qualified applicants become great tenants who don’t want to part with their pet-friendly rental.
8. Embracing Technology
If you haven’t already, join the digital age. Start collecting rent online and taking maintenance requests via text message or your website. Apartments.com Rental Tools can help you out with going fully digital too.
Select Tenants Carefully
One of the most effective ways to reduce tenant turnover is to carefully select your tenants. Apartments.com makes it easy to screen tenants, get the information you need, and find a qualified renter fast. Unlike our competitors, who use various third-party resources to collect information, we partner with TransUnion to provide you with screening reports for evictions, credit, and criminal history. Another feature you’ll find only on Apartments.com is support for co-signers, guarantors, and co-applicants. If you need more information to make a decision, you can request supporting documents from potential tenants directly on our platform. Get all the information you need to find the right tenant quickly and easily.
When screening a potential tenant, ask them pertinent questions that abide by the guidelines set by the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The FHA prohibits any housing-related discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Make sure your standards are the same for every potential tenant.
While there are many situations out of your control that cause tenants to move, there are also many that are in your control. Ensuring that you’ve priced your rental competitively for your market, responding efficiently to maintenance requests, and embracing technology and pets are all actions you can take to make your rental a sought-after place to live for qualified tenants.
