Keeping your Boston rental property occupied is required if you want to earn any money in the short and long term. Your tenants pay your rent, which contributes to the mortgage, insurance, taxes, and other expenses associated with your investment.
Placing any warm body in your property isn’t the best strategy. You want a well-qualified tenant who can be trusted to pay the rent on time and take good care of your property.
So, how do you attract those high-quality tenants?
More importantly, how do you keep them in place? Reducing tenant turnover also impacts what you earn on your investment property. The maintenance, marketing, and other costs that show up between tenants can feel excessive.
Here are some of the ways we attract and retain great residents as Boston property managers.
Attract Great Tenants by Offering a Great Rental Home in Boston
A good place to start is with an outstanding rental property. When you’re offering tenants a home that’s in a desirable location and well-maintained, you’ll attract a good pool of applicants.
You’re rarely going to find a high-quality tenant who wants to live in a deteriorating home. Make sure that before you list your property, it’s in excellent condition. It must be clean, functioning, and inviting. Pay attention to:
- Curb appeal – is your property welcoming and attractive?
- Appliances – do they match and do they work well?
- Upgrades and updates – are there any cost-effective improvements you can make?
- Safety – is there adequate lighting outside and do the doors and windows open, close, and lock easily?
You can’t rent a property to the best tenants if you’re not offering the best home. Tenants will be attracted to fresh paint, clean floors, and energy-efficient appliances and lights. They want parking and outdoor space. Most of them are looking for pet-friendly properties.
Attract High-Quality Boston Tenants with a Competitive Price
Boston’s rental market right now is exactly where you want it to be as a landlord. Rents are high, demand is high, and inventory is fairly low. More people are choosing to rent because the sales market is so overpriced and competitive.
That doesn’t mean you should overprice your home. Good tenants understand the market. They know what your property is worth.
When you offer value, you not only attract good tenants – you keep them.
Take the time to study Boston’s rental market and price your home competitively. You don’t want to underprice the property of course, but you also don’t want to overprice it. The extra time it takes to find a tenant who is willing to pay the higher price will be costly. You’re also more likely to lose that tenant at renewal time. They’ll be looking for a home that’s more reasonably priced.
Marketing Strategies for Attracting Boston Tenants
Once the home is move-in ready and it’s priced for the market, you need to do some advertising and marketing. If you want to attract the best tenants, make sure you focus on:
- Photographs. Take a lot of high-quality pictures for your online listing. Include the outside of the home, the kitchen, living room, dining area, all bedrooms, bathrooms, and any outdoor space. Prospective tenants will look at your photos before they read your description. Be ready to grab their attention.
- Concise Descriptions. Your ad copy should match the photos and highlight anything special about your property. Maybe it has a newly renovated kitchen or a garden tub in the primary bathroom. Perhaps there’s a garage. Sell the home to tenants with your words, but don’t write long paragraphs. Keep it detailed and concise. Include your contact information.
- Use Popular Rental Sites. Try to syndicate your listing out to as many rental sites as possible. This will cast a wider net and attract as many tenants as possible to your property.
Property managers in Boston have software that makes marketing easy and efficient. It also allows us to track where we’re having the most success. If you’re having trouble attracting tenants with your listing, consider reaching out to a management company for help.
Retaining Boston Tenants: Provide an Exceptional Rental Experience
Tenants are looking for clear expectations, transparent communication, and quick attention to maintenance and repair needs. When you can do these things, you’re more likely to retain your best Boston tenants.
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Communication impacts retention
Your relationship with tenants needs to be positive, respectful, and open. Tenants will renew their lease agreements when they feel like their landlords care about them, take care of their property, and listen when there’s something wrong.
Make yourself available to your tenants in as many ways as possible. They should have your phone number and email address. They should know how to get in touch with you if there’s an emergency or a problem. They should understand the procedure for reporting maintenance needs and they should feel comfortable communicating with you – even about unpleasant topics like late rent.
You don’t want to become too friendly with your residents or you may find yourself unable to enforce the lease agreement or hold them accountable. But, you want to make sure you’re friendly, able to communicate, and willing to help them when they need it. This will retain your tenants.
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Responsive rental repairs
Boston tenants will quickly become frustrated if they report a maintenance issue and it gets ignored. This is one of the main reasons tenants leave a rental property at the end of their lease term – they’re dissatisfied with how maintenance is handled.
Provide a positive and responsive maintenance process. Emergency repairs obviously require a sense of urgency but act quickly for minor or routine repairs too. Adopt a preventative maintenance schedule so tenants know you’re taking care of things like pest control, landscaping, and HVAC health.
When you’re working hard to attract and retain good tenants in Boston, make sure you have all the support and resources you need. We’d be happy to help you. Contact us at Platinum Realty Group for the best in Boston property management.