Managing an apartment complex is more than a full-time job. It�s an around-the-clock demand for your time. Between attracting new clients, preparing vacated apartments for new tenants and making sure your current residents are living comfortably, you barely have time for yourself. And yet, with all the hard work you put into being a landlord or manager, your complex is still seeing a higher tenant turnover rate than you�d like. Luckily, there are ways to change that that won�t prove time-consuming.
Hire a Property Management Answering Service
The more available you are to your tenants, the more satisfied they will be with their apartments. However, short of cloning yourself, you can�t take every call and answer every complaint instantly. You can, however, hire a property management answering service. With round-the-clock bilingual support, they�ll lend a sympathetic ear to any of your tenants� complaints and forward the information to you or your designated maintenance people quickly. In the event of an apartment emergency, they�ll be there to handle the situation even when you can�t get to the phone. You can rely on them to organize the calls by severity and dispatch appropriate solutions even when you can�t be on-site.
Hold a Regular Tenant Meeting
Suggest tenants attend an optional meeting once a month to discuss any issues that come up or make suggestions for improving the quality of life at your apartment complex. Take votes on the big issues and discuss the costs, if any, of making these changes. Suggest different ways of raising the funds for changes beyond raising rent � like taking up a voluntary collection from the residents most eager to have a pool built, for example. Even if you don�t make every change, residents will be happier if they feel like they play an active role in the running of the place they call home.
Fill Up the Complex
It�s no small order to lease all or almost all of the units in a complex, but your current residents have to feel like their apartments are in hot demand to recognize the value of where they live. Get the third party service that handles your resident complaint hotline to manage your prospective renters hotline, too. When someone can pick up a phone and immediately discuss arranging a tour of the property, they won�t simply hang up and move on to the next classified ad.
Communication with your tenants is key to ensuring a lower tenant turnover rate. While you can�t stop people from moving for personal reasons, you can encourage them to leave your complex a positive review because they were satisfied with their stay. The fewer people move simply because of the complex itself, the more tenants you�ll attract to begin with.
