Property and apartment management is a rapidly growing industry: around 2.5% per year. That means if you are looking for solutions for common issues, like handling tenant complaints, maintenance problems, or finding the right tenants, there are answers.
For starters, how do you handle maintenance issues within your rentals, or tenants who fail to pay rent on time? These types of issues are more common than you realize, and having a game plan in place will help you with the apartments you manage.
This article addresses common issues and how you can handle them to build a great rental community. Keep reading to learn more!
Attending to Tenant Complaints
Complaints are inevitable, whether you have one hundred leasing properties or a dozen. It could be minor issues, like disputes over parking spots or paint colors, or larger problems, like structural damage. Regardless of the scale or nature of the complaint, you should make sure each tenant feels heard.
Not all complaints have easy solutions. Do your best to attend to them right away, or keep your tenant updated about how the problem will be solved. Other problems may not have satisfying conclusions, like handling complaints about noisy neighbors.
Take the time to hear each party and avoid taking either tenant’s side. If separation is possible, move someone to a more private area. Lastly, include policies on excessive noise in lease agreements.
Maintenance Service Issues
Maintenance service requests are something all property management services should provide their tenants. One of the easiest ways to do this is by enrolling in a rental portal program. Rental portals link apartment managers and tenants online and do everything from paying rent, talking to neighbors, and submitting requests for maintenance.
A rental portal also keeps all your property needs in one place, so you can get to them in a timely fashion. This helps reduce risks of possible hazards, damage to the property, or injury. Additionally, quick turnaround times on maintenance requests boost tenant satisfaction.
Late or Missed Payments
Problems arise, and tenants will have reasonable excuses for needing to pay rent a few days late, but it needs to be addressed when it is a constant issue. The first step to preventing late or missing rent payments is to implement a grace period.
Giving tenants a grace period of three to seven days allows time to gather funds if something arises.
An additional method to help stop late and missing payments is to send reminders through an app or rental portal. If it comes time to have an uncomfortable discussion about payments, be firm and lay out the terms in a clear and concise manner.
Look into the laws about eviction and nonpayment, so you have legal backing if it comes down to it, though this should be a last resort.
Finding the Right Tenants
You have everything planned out, solutions for potential problems, and know what to do, but you still have to find the right tenants. During your tenant screening process, you should determine whether your candidates meet your standards. Similarly, you should run a background check.
Be aware of fair housing laws. You cannot refuse a tenant on the basis of race, color, nationality, religion, gender, sex, disability, or familial status. Finding suitable tenants can help you mitigate problems before they occur.
Handling Common Apartment Management Issues Made Easy
Apartment management is no easy task, but we hope this article on handling common issues is helpful. Attending to tenant complaints can be as easy as making sure everyone feels heard.
Addressing payments or maintenance requests problems is also much easier to handle with a rental portal. Lastly, finding the right tenants is the best way to prevent these issues before they even come up.
If you are a property manager in the Fort Lauderdale area and need more advice, contact the Homeriver Group now.
