Resident retention is a common goal for many landlords and property managers in general. Essentially, it refers to ensuring that your renters remain with you for the long-term.
It’s also a great goal that can improve your rentals’ returns significantly. It’s also a challenge for several people, but you can do a few things to help your property management in Florida.
Why you should care about resident retention
Forbes argues that resident retention is critical, especially with the current health crisis. With vacancies peaking, keeping occupancy healthy is a priority for both landlords and renters.
Resident retention ensures a constant income. However, that’s far from the only advantage. From staying away from marketing costs and vacancy, it’s easy to see why retention matters for property management in Florida and everywhere else.
Retaining long-time residents
RealPage’s blog states that long-time residents are often perceived as less important than new residents. As we already mentioned, that’s a costly mindset, and renewals are a lot more beneficial than replacing renters.
That’s why learning how to keep existing residents can be a lifesaver.
Relationships are vital
With that in mind, the most effective way to boost resident retention is to nurture honest relationships. You want to incentivize your tenants to renew their contracts.
Common practices include reserved parking, renovations, and promoting community projects and events.
Keeping everyone happy
Zillow also has several recommendations to ensure positive retention. These are more general than our previous section. However, they also pinpoint the foundation of keeping occupancy: healthy relationships.
Communities
You can create a sense of community to strengthen the relationships of all residents with you and each other. You can use common areas to host events for holidays and celebrations.
With today’s health concerns, you don’t really need to forego this approach. You can use social media and similar platforms to interact with your residents.
Maintenance
CAM (common area maintenance) is vital for property management in Florida overall. That’s just as true (if not more) for resident retention.
Make sure to keep all common areas clean and in good shape. That includes responding quickly to repair and maintenance requests to make your residents’ lives easier.
Adapting to your renters
Finally, you want to make sure you tailor your spaces to your renters. You should consider adding amenities, like a sports court or a kid’s park. You can even run community polls to gather feedback.