Getting Your Residents to Sign a New Lease

You know how hard it is, at times, to get a tenant to sign a new lease with you.  They have so many choices of where to live these days, that you really have to be on top of your game to keep them signing leases with you.  And being on top of your game doesn’t mean you start doing things just before their lease is to expire…you need to work on this all year long.

Whenever a tenant signs a new lease with you, they become a “new tenant”, so this process can be done for new move-ins and/or new signed leases.

Here is what you can do to keep a resident signing a lease year after year.  Say you have a resident/new move-in who has just signed their lease for January 1.  This is what you can do to make sure they sign a new lease next January.

Say “Thank you”…do this by sending them a nice thank you note and letting them know how much you appreciate them.  Let them know you and your staff are there for them if they need anything.

Around April (3 months into their lease), call them to see if they have any questions or problems.  Or just call to say “Hi, just wanted to touch base with you”…You want to keep the contact with them to let them know you are thinking about them.

Around July (six months in), you can send them a survey.  This will let you know if there are any problems that they might have that will keep them from signing a new lease.  Give them yes or no questions and don’t forget to leave a space for comments.  And make sure you ask them what would make their living experience better.

Around October (nine months in) send them a small gift…nothing too expensive…a pack of mints with a little note that says something like:  “You are a MINT of a tenant and I hope you will stay.”…send this with the letter letting them know it is about time for them to sign a new lease.  Make it fun and something that will, hopefully bring a smile to their faces.

So they’ve signed a new lease with you…now what?  Give them a little gift…make it something that they will like, but will benefit the complex…ceiling fans for example.  Most residents would love to have a ceiling fan, but can’t afford it and they don’t know how to put one up, so you give them a new ceiling fan, they choose which room it goes in, and your maintenance man puts it up…This way if they move-out later, their apartment will have ceiling fans to attract the new resident.  Give them a free carpet cleaning or update their bathroom fixtures, etc.  Something that will make their apartment look nicer..which benefits you and them.

I know what you are thinking…how in the world will I keep track of all of this? Easy, plan first, then start.  You don’t have to start in January, start the first of any month and go from there.

A notebook or computer spreadsheet will work just fine.  Enter all your tenant’s names in the month that their lease comes up for renewal and make sure you are ready to go before you send that first letter.

A three ring notebook, tab dividers with the months on them and notebook paper is all you need. Now you can get fancier then this, but honestly, these three items are all you need. Behind each monthly tab, you can do something like this:

Do up a chart, listing all the residents for that month with columns for each task.(1st month, 3rd month, 6th month, and 9th month). This way as you complete each task, you can put a check in the box, so you know it is done