My tenant has been renting from us for 2 years, we've had to work with him a few times, but he's always paid. We've always fixed anything that needed it right away. He pays us 475.00 a month for a 3 bdrm 14 x 65 unit with one bath, central air, fridge & range and washer/dryer included! # 102-0848 on my picture page, 2 tone brown. Property is private & quiet.

I've seen him replying to a lot of units offered on a local ad page. I realize I don't own them, but it bothers me that he evidently doesn't appreciate what he has and will dump us as soon as he finds something better.

Are you "loyal" to your mortgage holder? If a better interest rate came along, would you re-finance? If a better HOUSE came along, would you sell and move?

It's a mobile home. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I suspect there's a lot of overlap between your demographic and my demographic. (Fast food and factory workers.) Loyalty isn't one of the outstanding characteristics. Their house is more of a "place to stay and keep my stuff for now." If they find something $10/month cheaper, you may well find a vacancy... that $10 means more to them than it means to me. It's cool that he's stayed with you for 2 years... many of the people in my applicant pool don't keep the same employer for that long, let alone stay put for that long.

Pat, as others have said, this isn't a loyalty issue: nor is it a personal issue. Tenants come and go. Land lords buy, sell, and rent. We "earn" our business dollars day by day. The day when another business outdoes our ability or desire to earn someone's business, it's nothing personal... just business.

I've had a few tenants with a warped sense of loyalty that led them to stop paying rent. Of course, loyalty to them was a one-way street exclusively for their benefit, in spite of me always taking care of issues and offering very competitive rents for years.

That is a pretty good price, right about mid range I would say.

Nothing wrong with the scenario you describe. Here is what you are missing - perception. This tenant would pay more (within their means) if they thought something about your place was unattainable anywhere else. Starting first and foremost with your caring about the tenant.

(Some people will say this is a business I'm not here to care about my tenant).

For those, they just need to read "customer service".

Make certain your tenant knows your place is better, you are better, you support them with repairs and requests.

If there is stiff competition, put together some sort of program where they get a rebate if they pay on time for the next 12 months.

These suggestions are not for you to follow but a measure for you to check yourself against. If you walk away thinking " they simply don't know how much I have done for them" then you know you have homework to do.

At the same time, use the same good nature skills to attract the next tenant.

Pat, I hear you, but from a customer's standpoint, it's a good chance those are all things that they would expect from whomever they are renting from. UNLESS, you are doing a good job of SELLING your customers on how much you are doing BEYOND what the typical rental in the area offers which rents for the same price.

Here's my much bigger point for all those reading. If the truth be told, most of us landlords do a LOUSY job communicating (SELLING) to our residents, the value, benefits and or perks of renting our property. We simply assume our residents can see the value and then we can't understand why the residents wouldn't want to stay.

Unfortunately, many GOOD landlords lose up to half of their residents every year because of turnover. And I would dare say that a large percentage of renters who move would have stayed longer if those same good landlords had did a better job regularly RESELLING their renters on the value and perks of renting from them.

Kudos to Smokowna, who posted while I was typing. He hit the nail on the head: "Here is what you are missing - perception."

We put new vinyl flooring down in the unit before he moved in. He is young and didn't read the lease well enough to know he was responsible for lawn maintenance. (My husband handled his move-in, I could not at the time.) So, I explained it to him when he called & told me it needed cutting! So, yes, I could offer to do that, but there is nothing I can do about the age of the unit or the fact that it only has one bath.

I have decided that if we have something else come open, I will offer it to them, because they have proven themselves to be responsible.

P.S. Not to brag, because I did kind of a lousy job of communicating in my first response post to Pat, but one way I "sell" tenants on the value of renting from me is 6-8 weeks before lease expires or renews, I walk thru the property with the tenant and make note of 2-3 things they would like changed/fixed/etc. We get it knocked out within a week. That way when the annual rent increase notice shows up, there's still a warm fuzzy in the tenant's mind that "S i d cares...he fixed up the property 2 weeks ago and took care of that darn squeaky cabinet hinge."

Great reminder in this thread that we need to keep selling ourselves to our tenants!

The message: What sets us apart from the other landlords in this city? We care!

He is single, a truck driver, has a GF & baby that are only there part-time. We put a carport there for him when he moved in, and fixed a stopped up with grease drain w/o complaining, just asked them not to pour grease down it in the future. There are no close neighbors, it is in a field on our farm.

Pat,

Our job is to serve.

In their mind they are paying good money for us to serve them so showing up, fixing, etc is just normal.

The phrase "What WE did for THEM" is dangerous to the LL's attitide and emotional well being.

They owe us no more loyalty than if we were the cashier at WalMart. Serve them well, keep YOUR investment maintained, and treat them with respect.

Take it to the next level with Jeffrey's advice of a loyalty "program" of rewards and continued "marketing" to them about how they made a great decision by renting from you.

When they leave don't take it personally. And know that all the loyalty in the world will not stop their free atty from attacking you or filing bankruptcy on what they owe you.

Letting them fall behind will eventually be a money loss for you.

BRAD

you wrote:

... but I wouldn't dump him if someone came along and offered me more for the unit.

That is about YOU. What you do.

AND no perhaps you would not, but YOU COULD!!!

YOU COULD. Simple contract. Month to month. EITHER PARTY COULD.

10 weeks before my leases are up, I send out a survey to my tenants. I want to know what is bothering them and I want them to let me know. I offer them a $5 discount if they mail me back the survey filled out.

We've had some extremely long term tenancy. We have two 30+ year tenants. One of which said to me that the only way they are leaving is horizontal! The other 30+ year tenant had some lottery tickets, one day when I was over at their place. So I asked the tenant, "What would you do if you won the lottery?" The tenant said that they would buy this place, which was a 1 bedroom apartment in a multi-unit building. So even if they had millions they would still stay!

We try to provide a clean, safe place for our tenants at a reasonable price. We're not the highest price but we're not the lowest priced either, we're very competitive.

But beyond that we try to provide good service. Last winter, we had two tenants without heat on the weekend. In one of those cases we had a service representative there within an hour, who fixed the tenants furnace. The tenant was grateful, surprised and appreciative. The other case was also resolved that same day. I've talked to tenants who got no heat calls over the weekend and as a result the tenant was without heat for 4 or 5 days. Our tenants weren't without heat for 5 hours, see the difference.

I like to do small things for the tenants, even a short text to make sure everything is ok. I send cute email Rent Reminders at the first of every month.

Re: lawns, I have found that hiring a gardener, at least for every other week, and adding the cost to the rent, makes a lot of sense and the units always look nice. If you allow tenants to do it, 9 times out of 10 they don't and then the property and neighborhood suffers. I do make sure everything is always clean and welcoming, adding flowers in the spring and trying to plant plants that flower.

Dick,

I'm glad that's working for you. I used to be you and sort of still am. I too have some tenants who have been with me many years. In fact most of mine have been. They all pay below market rent but I started slowly raising them after seeing how much I was losing. Nobody has moved due to a rent increase.

In fact I just looked at all my properties and compared what I'm getting to what I could be getting and was stunned to find that if I raised my rents to fair market value or actually still slightly below I'd be making $28,000 a year more in rent. That pays for quite a few new roofs or air conditioners.