Resident retention in the real estate industry is a critical part to an investor’s success.  Several factors go into the cost of acquiring residents, marketing, and make ready costs. There is also lost revenue from vacant units, making it a key part of your ROI. We put some tips together to help you retain your residents.

A key factor in a resident staying is they feel they belong to a community. Their apartment should be more than a place to sleep and eat.

• Create a social media presence for your community. Try to get your resident to utilize your page to talk about the events you hold on the property. Talk about your staff and the community. Look to create experiences within the community.
• The day a new resident moves in, you should have a nice welcome gift waiting for them. Something they can use in their new place. Also, a popular idea is a gift certificate to a local restaurant for takeout or pizza. After a long day of moving, it’s nice to order some food and relax.
• Creating events for your property can give your residents a sense of community, and allow them to get to know each other as well. Fun events like cook-offs, BBQs or events for their children are usually big winners. An added benefit is once your residents get to know one another, they become more vested in the community, looking to better it, and taking a pride of ownership mentality.
• Training your staff in the professional manner which your residents should be treated is a key to success. Sometimes staff can be tested by a resident, making it key for them to know how to handle situations as they come up. Also, staff should eventually know all of the residents’ names, by site.  This kind of personal attention goes a long way to making everyone feel at home.
• As you walk your property, be sure to speak to the residents you run into and engage them. Talk about the community, their apartment/home, and their life in general. Ask for their opinion on what might be done better.
• Recognize the personal moments of a resident’s life, send birthday cards, get-well-soon wishes, notes of congratulations or praise, as well as invitations to recurring events happening on site.
• After a resident has been in your property for 90 days it’s always a good idea to send them a note asking how their stay is going, and if they feel you could do something more to service their needs.
• 60 days prior to their lease coming due you should reach out to them and remind them it is coming due, and ask if it’s OK to go ahead and send the new lease for them to look over so when the due date comes they can simply sign and return.
• If a maintenance item ends up getting overlooked (this happens more than we would all like to admit) consider offering them an accent wall, or coupon to a local restaurant or a gift card.

These tips are just some basic ideas we hope can help you retain your residents, with the bottom line being to make your tenants feel appreciated, after all, if it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t have an investment.   It can also be really helpful to sit down with your team to discuss their ideas and how you will implement them, or what they would like to see as well.