Resident Retention – Stay Ahead of the Game

Question:  Do you know the biggest things you can do to keep your resident’s happy?

Answer:  Stay ahead of the game…You and your staff can do a lot to stay ahead of things.  And staying in front of these items will keep your residents happy and you will find you will have less vacant units.

Maintenance -

1. Do preventative maintenance.  This will help you evaluate what needs to be repaired or replaced and you can budget for it before it goes bad.
2. Ask the Resident if they need anything.  This will let your resident’s know you really care about their needs.
3. Once a month, send out a “Maintenance Needed?” notice to your residents.  This can be something as simple as a checklist that allows the residents to check off anything they might be having a problem with, so you can fix it.  Making it easy for residents to let you know what is wrong, will help you keep things in working order.

Management -

1. Keep in touch with your residents.  Make sure they know that you care about them all year round and not just during their renewal time.
2. Sending birthday cards, get well cards, thank you cards, etc throughout the year will let them know you have taken the time to learn things about them.  Make sure you make the cards personal, put their names on the cards.
3. If you have to raise their rents, try to lighten the blow.  Let them know why you need to raise their rents.  Thank them for understanding and let them know you appreciate them for staying.

Porter -

1. Keeping the grounds and the buildings clean will make the resident’s proud to call your complex their home.
2. Offer carpet cleaning (if you have your own steam cleaner, this will make it easier to do).  Your porter can clean the carpets of residents who pay their rent on time…say all year long if rent is paid on time, your complex will clean their carpet.
3. Porters can also do preventative cleaning.  Do you have open breezeways, have your porter clean the light globes so the light can shine through making the building safer.

Doing a few simple things can help turn your property around.  If you are on top of things, bad tenants won’t stay.  If you can prevent bad things from happening (or at least cut back on them from happening) then your good tenants will appreciate you and they will stay.