I’m not kidding. I hate it when a tenant doesn’t perform as expected. That’s why we put so much effort into screening applicants to avoid unintended consequences.

You can buy a great house in a great neighborhood, but if you put the wrong tenant in there, you will lose money – and possibly big money.

You see, property management is every bit as important as your selection of a cash flow house. It is the foundation of your investment and will determine the likelihood of sustainable, predictable rent.

It involves so much work to select the right tenant, which begins with marketing.

For us, marketing starts when we know a house is going into our system and we do the following:

1. Meet the neighbors – Part of our procedure is to meet the neighbors on either side of the house and across the street. We let them know that if the tenants aren’t acting like good neighbors to let us know and we’ll resolve it or evict them.

The neighbors like to hear this, because most people want owners living next to them. By doing this, we give them assurances that we want to attract a tenant that ultimately will buy the house. We also ask if they know anyone that could be interested that they want as a neighbor.

The other intelligent aspects of meeting the neighbors in the community where we buy are to be able to call them to check on the property, and to have them notify us if they ever see moving vans or anything else that could give us insight to the tenant.

1. We hang bandit signs all over the area. These are signs to generate phone calls for people that want to live in these areas. It’s true, people drive all over neighborhoods they are interested to move into and this is a proven way to attract as many applicants as possible.
2. Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The idea is for us to attract every potential applicant so we have a larger pool to choose from. We would miss potential applicants that are working directly with realtors if we didn’t do this. Realtors typically will work on the largest commission and not necessarily show properties with low commissions. That’s why we have to give them a full month’s rent if they bring us a good applicant.
3. 300+ other websites. Our software automatically lists our properties all over the internet. Last week, we got 59 leads just by this marketing strategy alone.
4. Craigslist. Since most people shop for properties on this website. It’s important to note that properties stay on top of the listing for about 24 hours and then they are moved down. That’s why we update it every other day. This is critical for Craigslist to work.

And that’s just the beginning. When we do our work properly on the front side, property management is not only easier- it’s fun.

The truth is: I love what I do. I enjoy creating new relationships that benefit the tenant, the owner and my company. When you help enough people get what they want, you get what you want.

Anthony Salmeri
National ERA Servicing
(813)335-3980