Tenants Are People

Now the proud owners of our first revenue property, we were ready to begin life as landlords. Our decision to manage the property ourselves was based, in part, on our desire to gain experience in property management. How hard could it be?

I happily page through my files, reviewing expenses, and calculating income. I admired the rent checks in my file folder, fascinated that people I don’t know are paying me to live in a place I own. With the property fully rented, expenses are covered, all is well.

The next time I visit tenants to collect rent checks, I find myself standing in an entrance listening to a laundry list of reasons that rent will not be paid. I struggle to maintain eye contact, and it takes all I have not to drum my fingers, tap my toes or roll my eyes. I fume and don’t want to hear anything but the sound of a check sliding into my wallet.

As I drive off empty handed, I realize my faulty attitude towards tenants. From the beginning I’ve viewed tenants solely as a source of income – a line on my balance sheet. I didn’t anticipate such human problems as unemployment or heart attacks. Here, my bottom line meets compassion and I am perplexed to say the least. My responsibilities to my banker must be balanced with my compassion to my tenant. Hmm. What to do.

I wondered what I would want from my landlord? I would hope for understanding, patience, leniency, and caring. I would hope my landlord would care about my problems, and help me to solve them. I would hope that my landlord would not make things harder for me by demanding what I could not give.

I decided to treat our tenants the way I would want to be treated. With practice, I’m learning to listen. I’m learning to pay attention to the said and unsaid. I’m learning to notice and use opportunities to demonstrate care and respect.

Some practical ways I show my tenants I care include:

· Conversation. Asking them if everything is still working well, and following up on anything they might have mentioned before. (medical conditions, travel plans, etc)
· Thoughtful gestures. Emptying cigarette butt tins, weeding flower beds, picking up garbage and cigarette butts from the yard.
· Gifts. Free or discounted rent for special circumstances, gift certificates as ‘welcome home’ gifts to new tenants, etc.

Some other practical ways I would like to show tenants I care include:
· monthly communication in the form of a newsletter which contains interesting articles, comic, and maybe some freebies. Maybe tenants can even feature their own business in the letter.
· Gifts. Christmas, Birthdays, Anniversaries, and other special occasions in their lives – I would like to acknowledge those events in any number of ways. Cards, gifts or cash. Mix it up.
· Provide resources and information on home ownership or real estate investing. Tenants are sometimes tenants for lack of options. I believe real estate investing is sound, and is an excellent way to save for the future. Why should our tenants not have the same benefits?

I would love to hear your suggestions about how to treat tenants like gold … Uh , I mean like people ;)