You will never find the perfect tenant. But you can find the right tenant... You won’t find a single lawyer, a single doctor or a single professional to rent a 6 bedroom house in a typical South or West Auckland location. But you can find the best tenant looking for a 6 bedroom house in your location, at that point in time. And here are three tips on how to do this.
Tip 1:
Hold open homes at 12.30 to get the workers on lunch break. And 2pm to get the caregivers on their way to pick up school kids. Or by appointment after work. Traffic after work makes this time harder for open homes, but by appointment works well. Weekends I do at 11am, after brunch. Weekends are a hit and miss, as kids have sports on Saturday and there’s Church on Sunday.
Tip 2:
Get a good gut feeling about people at the open home by asking questions, observing and listening. Good questions, asked face to face, are worth more then a thousand paper application forms. And watch to see if they take shoes off before entering, and are the kids fairly well behaved. Pay attention to the small details. Do they smile and look you in the eye when you great them? With a good gut feeling you can then work on the application form.
Tip 3:
The application form will include the basic questions about previous rental history, employment and references. Stay tuned when talking to references, and check tenancy tribunal and police reports.
With a good of gut feeling, and a fairly good application form. Then don’t delay. Get a deposit, and book an appointment to sign them up. As good tenants will find a house quick!
If if you need a good tenant, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.
Patrick Rankin
