Do you give your tenants gifts?

I experienced the same thing. House was thrashed up and abandoned. Costed me a lot to remove the rubbish and repair the floor and other damages, not to mention the downtime.

And this was the 3rd time it happened to me despite houses being managed by "property companies". Very disappointing. It changed my mindset too that getting returns from investment properties is not necessarily the best way of investing.

 

My husband wanted to have a barbecue for the tenants in our commercial property every Christmas - I said no. With over four decades of experiences with tenants my mantra was to keep them at arms length.
This Christmas was my 4th without tenants, I dont miss them

 

I highly recommend you attend property inspections with your PM. You can nip this nonsense in the bud.

 

I’m a tenant (a great one I’m told). I take good care of property and usually return them in better state than I got them. The carpet had marks all over it. I scrabbles it over years and now it looks like new. Fixed up laundry door myself and fixed rusted pot marks on the balcony from previous tenant. These seeped into the concrete leaving semi permanent marks.

I don’t give a flying **** about gift vouchers and similar. Being a professional this feels a bit patronising.

What I care about is market rent or below. When I put my notice last year the owner dropped weekly rent $20 a week. Now I’m substantially below market rent ( I looked around). This will keep me here. That and the fact that when I asked for fluscreen it was installed in 2 weeks.

 

I bought my tenants a cake for Xmas this year. They were really appreciative of the gesture. Sometimes it’s the small things that matter

 

What will they do for you in return?

 

Geez thats horrrible..sorry to hear.

That would be up there with one of my dirtiest ones.

Rubbish removal is surprisingly expensive too

 

If i had a bbq with my tenants, id take a helmet and up my car insurance coverage

 

Only lease to gifted tenant's, they won't require further gifts.

 

It’s not about expecting something in return. It’s doing a nice gesture that made me and my tenants kids feel good. Hopefully being a good tenant they stay in the house and look after it. I feel that’s $30 well spent.

 

so you are expecting something from it, that the gift might help them be better tenants?

 

No, but having a positive relationship with your tenants is important. A $30 cake is a good way to establish a relationship. It’s like everything in life - generally if you treat someone good, they will treat you good, and vice versa. The added benefit is this will hopefully lead to them looking after my properties. It’s something I will continue to do at Xmas time. I want to keep good tenants. Is my approach right? I don’t think theire is a correct answer, but the feedback I got was the children in my properties were very happy to get the cake. To me it’s win-win.

 

absolutely no right or wrong, I know people that have bbqs with their tenants

 

Offering gifts to tenants can be a great way of building or maintaining a positive relationship. It can be more or less beneficial/appropriate depending on the tenant and existing relationship- the PM should have a pretty good idea of whether a tenant deserves and will appreciate a gift.

 

I have a great tenant...rent paid on time, looks after the place really well. Was considering a gift this year, but instead replaced her oven and cooktop (arguably the cooktop could have been repaired, and the oven worked but was crap). Apparently she was thrilled!

The lease renewal was due in November, and Iasked for a rise of $10pw. Its the first rise in 2yrs and still under market. Only just chased up the PM who advises the Tenant won't pay more than $5pw. Clearly she wasnt that thrilled

 

Part of the PM's job is to frame rent increases in a positive light, many just throw them at the tenant like a sack of potatoes. Most people will be fine if it's pointed out that they haven't had an increase in 2yrs in a rising market, and they're still paying below market rent. However, if this isn't explained to them- some tenants take a rent increase as a personal insult to their tenancy.