Concerned rental home owners are wondering how to best fill
their rental properties quickly. So are
property managers.
“Everyday my house is empty costs me money! Besides the mortgage payment, it’s the other
things that are absolutely killing me- utilities with this unusually cold and
snowy winter, HOA dues rising, you name it.
I need someone renting (or buying) my home!” is a common lament from
homeowners with a vacant home on the market.
As a real estate investor and property manager in Charlotte, I feel
your pain. I don’t like vacancies
anymore than you. But there is a simple
way to make your home attractive. And it
addresses the most heard complaint, by far, that I hear about houses and why
prospective tenants pass on them. And just
what is this revelatory nugget?
Cleanliness. That’s
it. Houses are typically not clean. Actually, it’s not that they are not clean
technically. It’s that they are not
clean enough. Prospective tenants want
to see sparkle. They want to see their
unblemished reflections coming off of stainless steel. They want to be able to eat off the
floors. They want to lap cool spring
water out of the toilets (well, I may be pushing it now…). The point is that they really like the houses
to be much cleaner than they would normally keep them.
Recently, we switched to a different cleaning service that
was more expensive. I would never think
of adding expenses to our owner clients (especially in this economy), but I
felt that our homes were not standing out as the rental market continued to get
more and more crowded.
And it worked. I
noticed our rate of conversions of visits to completed applications went up
dramatically. This has gone on for
months. Thorough, deep-cleaning was more
effective than lowering the rental price.
This has been especially effective for our rent-to-sell program where
people want to fall in love with the house they are potentially buying.
I would challenge you to give it a try. When a house has been on the market for a
while and has been getting visits (but no completed applications), resist the
urge to lower the price and just pay the dollars to give the rental home a
thorough scrubbing (or do it yourself, though I recommend professionals). See if it works!
Cleanliness is next to godliness, the saying goes. Reap the benefits of a shorter courting
period with prospective tenants!
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential Property
Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment