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Tag Archive - Apartment

Tenant Alterations: 3 Factors to Consider

By Sarah Gabot on January 30, 2012 in Property Management with Comments Off

A happy tenant is a happy customer. Sometimes, renters have plans of their own when considering decorating or enhancing your property. If you allow renters to make these changes, you can encourage a positive relationship and show you trust them. If you don’t, your tenant may not always be understanding. Unhappy customers have a lot of power because they can write bad reviews, affect your reputation or choose to leave your property.

There are three factors you need to consider when your renter requests to alter your property:

#1: How permanent is the change?

There’s a huge difference between asking to knock down a wall and making a hole in a wall to hang a mirror. For alterations that are not permanent, consider the time it takes to reverse the alteration. For example, having to spackle a wall after a tenant may be worth it if the tenant is happy and chooses to renew the lease. Also, you can request that the tenant restores the change back to its original condition, meaning they have to fix it after they move out.

#2: Is it “damage”?

If your apartment needs a paint touch up, and your tenant wants to repaint, there isn’t much harm in the alteration. If you allow your tenant to improve or alter your apartment, just make sure you get it all down in writing. Create a document stating the exact changes that will be made and whether you’ll be reimbursing them for the labor and materials.

#3: Is the alteration protected by law?

The federal Fair Housing Act protects alterations for a disabled person, with your prior approval. Your property needs to be comfortable and safe for your tenants, like lowering cabinets.

Federal law also allows tenants to install wireless antennas and small satellite dishes, so that they can send and receive wireless signals. Also, know your state laws, so that you’re familiar with what types of alterations are protected.

The Double Take Listing: Renovate, Then Take Pictures

By Sarah Gabot on January 26, 2012 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

We understand that it’s difficult to take professional-looking pictures of your rental property when you’re not a photographer. While you may be no Ansel Adams, nail down the basics of rental property photography before you start clicking the camera.

In this Craigslist listing, there were four pictures. There was also something wrong with each one. Learn from this ad and avoid these apartment photography blunders.

Clean up your property before taking rental property photos.

Lesson #1: Clean up.

Property photos shouldn’t look like a renter just moved out. When there are boxes, and clutter all over the place, it makes your property look unpolished.

Instead, move the clutter or stage your unit. At the very least, push aside all of the boxes and unnecessary items from the camera shot, so your place looks empty, not messy.

Lesson #2: Take meaningful pictures.

Take meaningful property pictures for ads.

Don't just take property pictures of anything.

Don’t just take pictures of anything! You want to make your unit look its best, remember? It’s really difficult to highlight entire rooms when you’re taking pictures of sinks and closet doors. It doesn’t do your property any justice, and may cause renters to believe you have something to hide or the room is tiny.

As mentioned in a previous post on rental property photography, try to take pictures including three walls instead of one or two. This will make your room look larger and give bigger scope of the room.

Lesson #3: Avoid taking pictures of construction

Clean up your property and don't take pictures of construction for photos.

Repainting your unit? Great. Renters don’t want to see it get painted. They don’t want photographs of your property being worked on, they want to see the end result.

Pictures like this make properties look sloppy and doesn’t give renters a good idea of what they’d move into. Exercise some patience before taking the photograph and wait for your property to renovated first, then take pictures.

Now that you know what pictures not to post, learn how to take better property pictures. Or, better yet, learn how to make great content for your online listings.

How to Create Better Listings: Writing Content that Converts

By Sarah Gabot on January 25, 2012 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

In our first publishing guide, you learned how to increase the number of views that your rental ads got. Things like when to publish listings and what types of subject lines to avoid. Itʼs easily our most downloaded resource. Now, by popular demand, weʼve developed a second guide that focuses on how to create better content within those ads.

Clicks donʼt matter when it comes to ads. Not as much as leads do. Effective online advertising principles spark the interest of renters and entice them to apply. Poor ads are skipped, compromise your credibility, or fail to interest your prospective renters. Create a winning ad with compelling and practical content to increase rental leads with these five ad publishing tips.

Download the rest of our guide for 5 tips to writing better ads for more rental conversions.

The Apartment Search: Finding Excellent Customer Service

By Sarah Gabot on January 24, 2012 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

It's important to offer excellent customer service to renters.

After renters whittle down the amount of apartment listings to a manageable few, they take the next step and start reaching out. Once e-mails start going out and phone start to ring, only half the work is done in closing out the lease. As soon as you make contact with a prospective renter, you’re being judged.

Hitting the wrong note with a renter risks losing a potential lead. That’s why you need to watch what you say and how you say it.

Exceptional customer service was what Ellen Mae Valdez, a renter relocating to Texas, used to pick a property. In yesterday’s post, we discussed her online search process. After she narrowed down her choices, impeccable customer service was key to signing her next lease.

Customer service as a quality indicator.

According to Valdez, she weighed the quality of an apartment a lot on the customer service provided. She said, “When I talked to agents, 50 percent of my interest was in affordability, 30 percent in environment and amenities, and 20 percent in customer service.”

Rental professionals that were unprepared and unpolished got their properties tossed to the bottom of the pile. Treat every prospective renter like it’s your only renter. If renters have questions, you’re expected to have answers. Even if you don’t have the answers right away, your commitment to finding them shows renters your dedication to helping them. Renters like that.

Using customer service for the long haul.

Renters look for quality customer service from rental professionals because they want positive interactions in the future. When renters look for a rental broker, they want someone they can use again when they need to move. Property managers and landlords are expected to help tenants when things go wrong in the unit. Renters use their first impressions of rental professionals as indicators of quality service.

Valdez said, “When you rent, it’s not your property. You have to call other people to fix things. I want to know that if I have a problem, I won’t be slapped on the wrist for it. I don’t want to be penalized for requests or questions I have.”

Once renters choose a property, they’re making a commitment to the property and to relationship with the rental professional. Give them respect, answer their questions and be friendly. Renters want to know they’ll be taken care of during their tenancy, and won’t be neglected.

The Apartment Search: How a Renter Searches Online

By Sarah Gabot on January 23, 2012 in Renters, Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Renters looking for a new apartment need to go through hundreds of listings.

Renters who need to to move or find a new apartment head straight for their computers to help start the search for a new home. It can be difficult to figure out what renters are thinking as they go through this process.

Ellen Mae Valdez, a registered nurse, who relocated from California to Texas, told us about her rental search process. Her methods prove that renters are particular and sensitive to many small details that are frequently overlooked by rental professionals.

The search started on Google.

Completely unfamiliar with her new hometown, Valdez started her research for her new Texas home on Google. She searched “Apartments in Temple, Texas,” which is a very common search for people looking for apartments in a specific city. In fact, the most common search word for rental searches is “apartment,” as noted in the guide on creating “Better Rental Websites.”

While on Google, Valdez looked at the results on the first page, assuming that the best results would appear first. Renters are quick to make decisions, and expect Google to give them the best results first. That’s why renters focus their attention on the top search results, and neglect the rest. If you want your rental business to get visibility on Google, rental professionals need to channel energy into SEO, which helps get websites higher in Google search results.

Then, she went to Craigslist.

While some renters go to Craigslist first, Valdez went to it second. She skipped listings with subject lines that obviously were visually trying to grab her attention. “I skipped the ones with all caps or up and down letters,” she said, “It’s like they were yelling at me. I didn’t like that. It was also unreadable.” Writing visually distracting subject lines grab renters’ attention, but make sure it’s the right kind.

Once she started opening apartment ads, she looked for one major item: a link to an external website. Apartment rental listing on Craigslist are a sufficient way of getting essential information about a unit to a prospective renter, but a rental website is expected to give more details. Valdez said, “If they don’t have a link, I don’t go much further.”

She felt that if a rental business is professional, it should have a website to support it. She said, “The website is the first impression you get from the business.”

Websites need to be intuitive.

Rental websites need to answer all the questions renters may have by including all the information they need. Requiring renters to call for more information is one additional step they don’t really want to take.

“The websites needed to be especially intuitive,” Valdez said, “They need to include enough details about the apartment, and be organized.” Websites that didn’t provide the details she needed, she abandoned.

Rental websites that are easy to navigate are essential for renters. Renters on websites that don’t tend to their needs will find one that will. Websites that cover their bases will get rental leads.

Learn about how this renter decided on a property based on one factor in tomorrow’s blog post.

White wall syndrome: Decorating a rental apartment

By David Vivero on June 23, 2009 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

Following up on a link we shared on our RentJuice Twitter account to an article about remodeling your rental, we’re sharing some more tips about decorating a rental apartment and making it feel like your own place. The rest of this post is written by RentJuice CEO David Vivero: