The Landlord Lens - Finding Tenants Fast

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

On the last episode of Be A Better Landlord, Seamus shared his method for locating and assessing his most recent investment property. In this episode, Krista interviews him about his strategies for swiftly finding and accommodating new tenants.

Hi, I'm Krista. This is Seamus and we're here to help you be a better landlord. So last episode, we talked about how you found your property, everything that went into assessing that deal. This time, I'd love to learn more about how you found your tenants. Finding the tenant was super easy. So just in terms of a timeline, we found the property July 3rd. And I found my wife came across it, a Zill listing for it, right? We recognized the face of the real estate agent. We called them that afternoon. We got into the property. Wow. And by the next morning, we had it under contract.

So all these steps that I'm talking about, we did very, very quickly because fortunately, the majority of this information is publicly available, or you can write it into the contingency of closing. So things like investigating the HOA, we weren't able to do that on that Sunday afternoon. Sure. But we were able to write it into the contingency of closing so that we had the time to do it. So we looked at the property within 16 days we'd closed since it was the equivalent of a cash offer. before we even closed, we listed the property on TurboTenet because we had all the images.

We literally uploaded them. We did the rent estimate calculator, as I said. We settled on what we would ask for rent, and we had it listed. And so by the time we closed and got the keys, we already had a handful of leads that were interested in coming and seeing the property. And so that process was very, very smooth. One thing that we did do that slowed the process down a little bit, but I would absolutely do again. is we listed it at the high end of local rent for the area for two reasons. One, obviously, the more you can get from a rent standpoint, the better the property is going to cash flow.

But two, having it on the higher side from a rent perspective, also will change some of the applicants you'll get. We wanted to attract applicants that had a solid source of income. And so that helped a great deal. In fact, because we are very explicit within our property description with our renter criteria, we actually had renters contacting us, and they would mention as part of the pre-screener that we do, they would actually mention whether or not they fit our requirements, which is really helpful because they kind of would select themselves out. Sure.

No, and that's a great way to keep things moving quickly without sacrifice and quality. So you mentioned the prescreener really quickly. Tell me more about that. How valuable was that to you as a landlord moving through all of these leads? Yeah, so you're doing it. a lot of things at once is a landlord, especially when you're purchasing a brand new property. And so we're closing on the property. We have leads coming in. Any lead that came in without a pre-screener, first we would give them a couple hours to fill it out after they actually submitted

the lead form. Then we would just reply to them and ask, thank them for their interest and give them a link actually to the prescreener. And so we got a prescreener from every single person that we did a showing for and we actually made a requirement. We'd say thank you for, you know, Thank you for your interest. Please fill out this form and then we can schedule a showing afterwards, which was really, really helpful just to make sure that we were not showing it to people that it wouldn't be a fit for. Sure. No, it's again a great way to qualify the lead and make sure you're not wasting your time or theirs. So you mentioned the prescreener. I'd love to know more about how you use that and if it helped you sort through your leads. Yeah, so we've required anyone that we're going to do a showing to to first fill out the pre-screener.

Nice. One, because it gives us more information about the candidate, right? But two, it also is a good sign of just genuine interest, right? And so it turned out that of the 10 or so leads we got in the first four or so days, the eight of them filled out the prescreener, those eight we then turned around and set up a time to come see the property.

And even when you're doing that, you're gonna lose people. We had, of the eight, we had two of those that did not show up to the showing or sent just a message the morning of the showing saying that they found another property or that they weren't going to make it happen. Yeah, that makes sense. That's why it's a numbers game. But really qualifying those leads helps you to move quickly without, you know, sacrifice and quality. Absolutely. So another question that pops up often with our landlords is

whether or not to accept pets. What did you decide with that? Yeah, so we went back and forth a lot around that. I know from a statistics standpoint, the majority of renters have pets, right? And so what we decided is to first start without pets, but be flexible on it. The one thing we really liked about this property is it had hardwood floors throughout. So there was no carpets that a pet could really do some serious damage to. And so our thought process was we start with no pets. If we're not happy with the lead volume or the options that we have, we can always add on pets afterwards. It turns out that the those interested didn't have pets and the renters that we are that our current tenants that individually end up filling it with, um, weren't looking for a property

with pets anyways. So it was, uh, it was kind of a win-win from that standpoint. I'm glad we took that approach. Um, first, we are also very willing to be patient in wait. Uh, there wasn't a high amount of urgency, uh, for us. And so, um, we allowed it to be listed for a little bit longer, knowing that we were going to restrict our options a little bit by not having pets. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So something I want to highlight, if you are a landlord looking to fill a property quickly, maybe you open that floodgate sooner as long as that jives with, you know, the various amenities or the layout of the actual unit, then you'll have more folks.

But if you're willing to wait a little bit, sounds like you can make those decisions as they come and decide later to open that up if you want to. Yeah, exactly. And because we closed faster than I anticipated we would, and we started marketing the property before we had even finished closing, it felt like we were ahead of the game enough that if we had to be a little bit pickier, we could. And that's the way we thought about the rent price as well.

We started out high knowing that, hey, if we don't fill it by a certain time, we can drop the rent, we can allow pets. There's different things that we can do to sweeten the deal for a tenant. And one of those levers you could pull is the security deposit. Talk to me a little bit about that. Did you decide to do it as one month's rent, something else. Yeah, so for a security deposit, when we had it posted, we just had it as one month's rent. And then the tenants that we found actually had co-signers. And when we saw the

background in the credit reports of both the tenants as well as their co-signers, we felt very secure from that standpoint. And so we actually reduced the security deposit in that conversation to less than one month's rent. Not a huge amount. But also we evaluated. this state that the apartment was in and realistically felt like we were still covered based on what any kind of non-traditional issues might be or things that might come up. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Now, when it came to actually moving your tenant in, how did that work? Did you do a move-in inspection with them? Did you advise them to go ahead and take pictures? How was that process? We did a move-in on the 4th of July. So that was a little bit

atypical and they were moved they had a time frame with which they were going to move in it turned out to be right during a fourth of july parade that my daughter was very set on attending so i went over there met them with the keys make sure they could get in and then we actually went into the inspection with them afterwards nice and so that was really awesome because they had actually moved some of their stuff in already just based on timing but i got to see how they were setting up the honestly and just walk through with them very very easily taking photos and the way in which we I made sure to describe it to the tenants is this is their opportunity much like when you rent a car right it's your opportunity to

identify any issues with the place right now to ensure that you're not held liable for it at all and so as you can imagine when framed that way the tenants don't view it as an intrusion kind of of privacy but rather as a good opportunity them to point out any little thing for you to document so that it doesn't come out of their security deposit later on. And so I think the act of doing it with them, so previously I've not done it with the tenant before, I've given them the form, they just sent it to me, but the act of doing it with them I really liked in that it let them know how much I was trying to investigate different things to make sure that they weren't unfairly accused of causing any damage

at the time I move out. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that sets up your landlord-tenant relationship really well. It's another conversation that you guys have where you're saying, hey, I have a vested interest in you getting your money back at the end of this tenancy. Exactly. Is there anything else that you'd recommend or that you perhaps did to kick off your relationship on a positive note, something that you'd recommend other landlords do? So a really small thing is just going over there before they moved in, turning on the air conditioning. I did some repairs. There was a thermostat that was honestly kind of crap in the place. So I changed that over. Changed over toilet seat. That was pretty old. So changed that over. And so just did a handful of those little touches.

So we actually stocked the place with toilet paper, paper towel, and cleaning supplies. Nice. With a little bit of a nod towards keeping it clean, right? But also just save them some money on those original unsexy supplies you have to buy when you move into a new place. Yeah, things that everybody needs and that you are then providing, which is really nice. Okay. I love that. Well, Seamus, this is all really good information. Is there anything else you want other landlords to know now that you've recently gone through the process once again?

Well, I think one of the things that I didn't fully appreciate was the investigation into HOAs. And so I think that's something that everyone should spend more and more time with. I know in Colorado here, it seems like every single property has an HOA. My primary residence doesn't. And so I didn't have a lot of experience there. And so that is one of those underlying expenses that can really flip a good individual. investment, you know, into a break-even investment or even an upside-down investment. So that is a big thing that I would encourage everyone to make sure that they're looking at. And then the last thing is

just when you're thinking about prepping a property for someone to move in, just think about those little things as if you were moving into a place, what would you want in there? And I think it's a really good way to set up a strong relationship. And honestly, as a landlord, it's very inexpensive and it doesn't take a lot of time. Yeah, it's those little touches that end up meaning a ton, especially as you continue to have a relationship with this tenant. Absolutely. Well, Seamus, this was a blast. Thank you so much for answering all of my questions.

You're welcome. And if anyone has other tips or things that I did define a tenant that they feel is completely wrong, please let us know in the comments. And don't forget to subscribe. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice. Landlord better, from anywhere, for full. free at turbotenant.com.