You’ve bought a residential rental property or your tenants have just given notice and you’re ready to launch your mission to find ideal tenants to hand over the keys to the door. With media publicity of horror stories about the tenants from hell in the back of your mind, you’ll appreciate that this part of the process is critical to ensure a harmonious and trouble-free ride. The first step is to gather information and to scrutinise the applicants taking care not to take any short cuts. The selection process needs to be comprehensive, methodical, conform to legal requirements and always approached with a healthy dose of pragmatism. Best Property Management have non-negotiable checks and balances that must be included in the selection process.
Your property should be marketed looking its best to indicate to prospective tenants from the outset, the level of appeal, cleanliness, and maintenance that will need to be sustained. Take good photos, write an appealing advertisement and highlight all the features and benefits of the property and surrounding neighbourhood. Like attracts like so your goal is to ensure your rental property shines, thus attracting tenants who will respect your home as if it was their own. It’s about setting expectations. A well-presented rental property that conveys quality and high standards of tidiness will set the bar at a level tenants recognize they will be required to sustain for the period of their tenancy.
You’ve fielded enquiry and it’s now time for the respondents to fill in a pre-tenancy application form. This can be downloaded from Tenancy Services and will begin the precursory vetting process to refine your choice of the perfect tenants for your property. A two-page document, the information recorded will include their proof of identity, two referees (ideally get three) and most importantly, grant you authorisation to make further background checks on them. Best Property Management use the nationwide Tenant Profile system to streamline things and add a layer of stability to the process.
From here the real deep dive into the details of your prospective tenants begins. Based on the information you’ve been supplied, this is where you’ll need to allocate plenty of time to ascertain the suitability of a tenant based not on what they have provided, but what you yourself can amass. This is a key part of the process because if you overlook something during this part of the screening process it may cost you dearly in the long run. Best Property Management have a raft of strategies to ensure that no stone is left unturned in determining a tenant’s suitability for one of their managed rental properties. The cost can be too high if you’ve not appropriately established such things as tenant’s income and capacity to service a weekly rental. Obtain the names and contact details of independent and impartial referees such as employers and call up past property managers rather than rely on friends and family – you must follow up on every piece of information. This is a time-consuming exercise, but essential.
Once you have shortlisted your top choices, take the time to discuss the specifics of the property with applicants to make it clear on the terms and conditions of the tenancy. It’s no good discovering at the 11 th hour that your ideal candidates have two cats when your property is in an apartment block that bans pets under body corporate rules. Cover off anything at all that impacts on your property to avoid costly issues arising further down the track when it’s all too late for regrets. The old adage of measure twice, cut once is the order of the day here.
Getting great tenants for your rental property does not happen by accident. The process hinges not on good luck but great management. This is why hiring Best Property Management to take care of the vetting and tenant-finding process will eliminate the headache, heartache (and “wallet-ache”!) and ensure that everything stays on track for a positive and profitable property investment future for landlords.
Feeling out of your comfort zone in finding the right tenant for your rental property? For peace of mind give Peter and the team at Best Property Management a call to make it easy.
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