Whether you own a single rental property or manage a portfolio, keeping your rentals occupied is essential for maximizing the return on your investment and is the lifeblood of your overall success as a landlord, as high occupancy rates ensure a steady stream of revenue and help build your properties’ long-term value and reputation. In this blog, you’ll find some of our favourite strategies to help landlords attract and retain quality tenants.
4 Pro Strategies to Maximize Your Properties’ Occupancy Rate
1 – Level Up Your Marketing
Developing a solid marketing strategy for your properties is the first step to having a constant stream of interested tenants. Here are some of the things you can do to improve your rentals marketing efficiently:
- Analyze and Determine Your Property’s Unique Selling Points: Why should a tenant want to rent your property over the competition’s? Whether your property is in a desired location or has special amenities, you need to pinpoint your property’s selling points before doing anything else to be able to create the visuals and use the language that will showcase your rental in the best way possible.
- Take Good Photos: First impressions matter; bad-quality photos with poor lighting can make tenants move on to the next property. These are our pro tips to showcase your property:
- Natural Lighting: Take photos using the best natural lighting possible, as it helps to make the space appear more inviting. Open curtains and blinds to let in natural light, and avoid using harsh overhead lighting or flash that can create unflattering shadows.
- Shoot from the Corners: Position yourself in the room’s corners to capture as much of the space as possible in the photos. This helps provide a better perspective of the room’s layout and dimensions.
- Highlight Key Features: Focus on capturing the property’s most attractive features, such as hardwood floors, built-in shelves, or architectural details. These features can help differentiate your property from others and attract potential tenants.
- Use a Tripod: To ensure good and steady pictures, use a tripod to stabilize the camera.
- Take Multiple Shots: Take multiple shots of each room from different angles to give potential tenants a comprehensive view of the space.
- Capture Exterior: Don’t forget to capture the property’s exterior, including the front facade, landscaping, outdoor living spaces, and amenities like a pool or patio.
- Edit Images: If necessary, you can use photo editing software (there are many options via phone app or online that offer many free features) to enhance the photos. Adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness to make the photos look more professional.
- Focus on Online Promotion: Modern tenants like the convenience that real estate platforms offer. Some of them offer an immersive experience with 360°views or videos of the properties listed, so having a presence on the ones your target tenants use to look for properties is a must.
Some of the most important include Kijiji, Craigslist, and Trovit, which, while not specialized in real estate, are popular places to look for listings. We also recommend publishing on real estate sites like RentFaster, Rentals.ca, RentCanada, and RentBoard.
2 – Offer Special Offers And Amenities
High ownership affordability has pushed more people into the rental market, and landlords have to take this rising demand as an opportunity to increase their property’s curb appeal, offering highly desirable amenities and lease conditions. These are the most seek for tenants:
- Furnishing Options: Offer fully or partially furnished units to attract tenants who can afford the rent price but don’t want to spend on buying furniture if they don’t own it beforehand. Offering essential appliances like a fridge and a washing machine and basic furniture like a closet, a bed, or a couch, whether new or second-hand in good condition, will do wonders in attracting high-quality tenants.
- Pet-Friendly Policy: Many high-quality tenants own pets, that’s why you should consider allowing pets and providing pet-friendly spaces to widen your tenant pool considerably.
- Utilities: Many tenants like the convenience of having utilities such as water, electricity, and internet included in the rent price.
3 – Screen Tenants Thoroughly
Implementing a thorough screening process to ensure you do business with reliable tenants will significantly reduce turnover and maintain a steady occupancy rate. We’ve covered in detail tenant pre-screening in previous blogs, but these are the main screening items landlords shouldn’t skip:
- Background Check: Research potential tenants’ criminal history to ensure the applicants have no serious criminal convictions and check their previous tenancies to determine if they had any prior evictions. A background check is essential to assess the tenants’ character and ensure they will rent your property long-term.
- Credit Check: A tenant’s financial responsibility is fundamental and can make or break their application. Review your applicants’ credit score for any red flags, such as late payments, high debt, or bankruptcies.
- Employment and Income Verification: A tenant with a stable job and sufficient income is the best way to guarantee you’ll get the rent payments on time. As a rule of thumb, aim for tenants with a rent-to-income ratio of 30-35% of their gross income.
- Personal meeting: Conduct a face-to-face or virtual interview to better understand the applicant’s personality and ask any follow-up questions you may have after reviewing their application and running the background check.
4 – Focus On Quality Management
From our experience, tenants who feel their needs and concerns regarding the property are adequately addressed and solved tend to live in the same place for years. Keeping the property in good shape with regular maintenance and inspections to detect potential major problems on time will enhance the property’s appeal and keep the occupancy rate high.
In previous blogs, we have covered the ins and outs of property maintenance in detail. We suggest you these if you want more professional advice on how to manage your property as an independent landlord:
High Occupancy Rate Equals Success
Maintaining your property occupied for as long as possible directly impacts your success as a landlord, so making your occupancy rate your top priority is essential. However, achieving a high occupancy rate requires hands-on work, and many independent landlords fail to perform all the tasks needed to attract and retain tenants. If this sounds familiar, working with a property manager can be the best investment to ensure your property stays occupied and generates revenue.
If you’re a Calgary landlord wanting to boost your property’s occupancy rate but don’t have enough time or resources to do it yourself, we can help. Contact us today to get started.
