Fill Your Rental Home with Complainers?

As a property manager in Charlotte, we conduct a lot of rental house showings.  Typically afterwards, the tenant is either interested in the house and submits an application or is not interested and goes incommunicado with us.  Fair enough.

 

But sometimes we get an e-mail like below:

 

Hi BDF Realty,

 

I saw the rental house today and liked it.  However, I was wondering if the owner would be willing to address the following before I moved in (if I were to apply):

 

1. Clean the windows- interior & exterior
2. Replace the kitchen flooring (small rip in front of the stove)
3. Replace the light bulbs to LED
4. Replace 2 of the blinds that have cracks
5. Change the front lock because it sticks a bit
6. Paint the downstairs bedroom a neutral color (I prefer beige for my bedroom set)
7. Replace the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator (slight crack starting to form)

 

Etc., etc., etc… this list goes on for a page and a half filled with minor item after minor item.  It’s not exciting reading!  I don’t care to read anything that long unless it’s about one of my fantasy football players (7-3 this year so far- yeah!).

 

In my early, inexperienced years of being a property manager, I may have composed a letter back to them that would read something like this:

 

Dear Prospective Tenant,

 

Thank you for your (dis)interest in our rental property.  After a careful review of your requests, here is what we are willing to do in regards to each of them (answers correspond to the numbers in your email):

 

1. Nothing
2. Nothing
3. Nothing
4. Nothing
5. Nothing
6. Nothing
7. Nothing
8. – 93. Nothing

 

Thanks again for your (dis)interest!

 

Love-

BDF Realty

 

P.S. From my experience, courtship doesn’t work like this.  We have the property.  You don’t have the property and may want to live there.  You should be selling us on you, not asking us to do a lot of marginal stuff instead.  Just sayin’…

 

P.S.S. There’s this thing called “new construction” you may want to look into. 

 

However, this is almost always not the best tact to take.  Landlords actually should want these tenants.

 

What????  Repairs cost money!  Why spend it on non-operational stuff?

 

I’m not saying to offer to do everything.  But definitely offer to do some things.  Some people would call these prospective tenants “annoying” or “complainers”.  A different, nicer moniker would be to call them “meticulous”.

 

And in my experience, “meticulous” tenants keep and leave your place in great shape; dare I say in “meticulous” shape!  There are usually improvements made during their tenancy (that they pay for), rent is always on time (or early), and everything is in perfect order.  We really like these people after the first few months and then don’t want them to ever leave.

 

There is some pain on the front end.  However, once they get situated, the back end is awesome.  Bring those complainers on!

 

Happy Landlording!