DON’T LET HORROR TENANTS SPOOK YOUR INVESTMENT EXPERIENCE

Halloween is just around the corner, and it got us thinking about nightmare tenants and how bad experiences often scare landlords into making rash decisions.

A dodgy tenant can put a dampener on your investment experience. On the flip side, you might be holding on to bad tenants out of fear of losing rent and worrying whether the new tenants will be worse.

Over the years, we’ve dealt with our fair share of horror renters, which means we now have the experience to handle almost any situation. And that experience ensures that your investment continues to be profitable and stress-free.

The first step in avoiding troublesome tenants is a thorough screening process and having a large enough pool of applicants gives you the flexibility of choice.

Too many landlords find themselves let down by agents who prioritise getting someone into a property, rather than getting the right person.

At Elevate, we have a rigorous screening and evaluation process that means we’re only presenting our landlords with reliable tenants. We do this by focusing on five key areas:

1. Financial Capacity – We ensure any potential tenants can comfortably pay their rent without living outside their means (for their benefit and yours).
2. Employment Stability – Steady employment is ideal so we can be confident your tenant will consistently pay the rent. However, we know how quickly modern work setups change, so we adapt our evaluations to assess all employment types.
3. Rental History – Historical behaviour is a good indicator or future actions, so we look at a tenant’s current or previous rental history, making sure they always pay in full and on time.
4. Communication Skills – Timely and easy access to the property is crucial, as is transparent and open communication, so we’re looking for tenants that reply quickly, are readily available and effective communicators. 
5. Bond and Incidents History – We look for any prior incidents throughout their previous tenancy to spot any red flags. For example, the reasons why any bond deductions were made. 

But our work doesn’t stop once we’ve found the right tenants.

They say you don’t know someone until you live with them, and that’s never truer than when you have new tenants living in your property. It’s when problems arise that you find out what your tenants are like, both good and bad. That’s why effective management is crucial to foresee and prevent problems, as well as deal with requests efficiently and diplomatically.

Of course, a bad tenant may slip through the cracks. But you can be confident that our team will handle the situation in the best way possible and stop it turning into a horror story.

Want to find out more about Elevate’s services for landlords? Contact Daniel on 0414 203 264, dbligh@elevatepg.com.au