
As an investor and landlord, it can be hard to look at tenants objectively.
Just imagine this scenario: You have a property that’s been sitting on the market for 90 days. You’re not getting any traction — no showings, no applications, no nothing.
But then someone applies. Now, the application is…. Questionable. Maybe they don’t have the income you’d like or maybe they have a low credit score. What do you do?
What do most landlords do in that scenario? They move the tenant in. They’re worried about the property sitting on the market and desperate to start collecting rental income — so they approve the application, even if it doesn’t meet the standards they originally wanted in their tenant.
And it’s a HUGE mistake.
The problem with this scenario is threefold. First of all, with a questionable background, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the tenant will have problems paying the rent. Second, the landlord isn’t thinking about the long term; the amount of time they’ll spend chasing down the tenant for rent and, eventually, moving forward with evictions, isn’t worth the one or two months' rent they’ll get from the tenant. And lastly, this entire scenario will end up right back where it started — with a vacant property that’s not generating any income.
When it comes to investment property, there’s nothing more important than finding and placing high-quality tenants. When you have the right tenants in your property, you’ll get paid on time and in full. The tenants will take care of your property like it was their own. The entire process is easy and simple.
But how, exactly, do you find the right tenants?
At LEAP, we’ve spent the last 15 years developing a proven tenant process that ensures each of our clients gets the highest-quality tenants in their properties — and saves them a ton of time, energy, and money as a result.
Let’s break down our process for finding and placing the best tenants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area:
The Background Work
The first step to finding quality tenants starts before we ever start the screening process — and that’s the work we do on the backend to make sure every property we work with is set up to attract the highest quality tenants.
And the key to attracting the highest-quality tenants? Price and condition.
Those are really the two factors tenants care about — they want a property at the right price and in the right condition. So we work with our clients to make sure we nail them both.
A lot of investors aren’t sure how to price their properties, so we pull comparables in the area to show what similar properties are fetching in the market — then we use those comps to help them price their property competitively. In terms of the condition, there’s always some debate about how clean or well-kept a property should be, but our rule of thumb is “hotel condition;” if a tenant wouldn’t stay at a hotel in the condition of your property, you can bet they’re not going to rent from you, either.
Once we’ve got the price and condition taken care of, then it’s time to start getting the property out to the right people — and in the right way. When we list a property, we take a ton of professional listing photos, we highlight the amenities, we describe the features in detail, … basically anything necessary to frame the property in a way that will attract the right tenants. And once our listing is ready, our marketing team promotes it EVERYWHERE. We make sure every listing gets in front of the widest audience — because the wider the pool of potential tenants, the higher the likelihood of finding great tenants in that pool.
The Vetting Process
Once the listing is out in the world and the applications start rolling in, it’s time to start vetting candidates.
This is the part of the process where a lot of inexperienced landlords struggle. They’re so focused on the marketing and getting as many applications as possible, they neglect screening those applications properly — and end up with terrible tenants as a result.
At LEAP, we know tenant screening is, hands down, the most important part of the process. Every application goes through a rigorous screening process so we know we’re only recommending the best of the best to our clients.
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The vetting process may knock a large percentage of tenants out of the running — but what’s left are the kind of tenants who pay their rent on time and take care of your property. And that’s what matters, right?
The LEAP Proven Property Management Tenant Placement Process (And How It Can Benefit Your Investment)
As an investor and landlord, finding and placing quality tenants can be overwhelming. When you work with LEAP, you get the benefit of our proven property management tenant placement process. We’ve been refining this process through thousands of candidates, and we’ve got it down to a science. When you work with us, you’ll only deal with the highest-quality tenants — and you won’t have to worry about the time, energy, and hassle of finding them yourself.
Ready to get started? Get in touch today to find out how LEAP can help you find and place the perfect tenants for your properties — in less time than you ever thought possible.