Are you a tenant? Have you paid your rent on time, not trashed the place, or had the police knock at your door at 3am for noise disturbance? Then you fit right in the category of good tenants. Congratulations!
As a landlady, I have had my share of good and bad tenants. Luckily, they all paid well. I rent a 3 bedroom flat to three different people, so at any given time, I am expecting three payments, dividing or multiplying my risk by three, depending on how you see it. I also constantly hope that the three, who didn’t know each other before the moved in, are getting along.
My ”bad tenants” were noisy, dirty, loved a good scandal, and my golden perfect tenants hated them. I was lucky they accepted to move out quickly. Getting new tenants is stressful for all.
But let’s focus on the good tenants. Both stayed for three years with me, automated their rent payments so never went late on paying rent, were clean and considerate. On top of that, they screened potential roommates (not very well, since the chose on several occasions what ended up being a bad tenant), avoiding me a trip to the UK to do that. They also fixed stuff around the house, and let me know asap if something was wrong. They forwarded my mail to my mum’s address. They were perfect, and the left last month, so I don’t know the new guys, I just hope they are perfect too!
Usually I increase the rents once a year. But at the end of year 1, I thought that I might drive them away, so I froze the rent! I wrote to them, explaining that I was really happy with them, thanking them for keeping the flat pristine, and that as such I wouldn’t hike the rent. After consideration, I think I should have hiked the rent, and waited for them to maybe negotiate the rent down.
But the next time I rent a place, I will surely negotiate. If you have a history of being a good payer and a discreet tenant, you should too.
You lose nothing by trying
Your landlord will think
”ok, I don’t care, I will just evict him and have some other guy move in and pay me more…. wait, I will have to clean the place/hire an agency/find a new tenant/pay for credit check/paint the place…”.
You name it. There are plenty of fees associated with losing a tenant. Your flat may be empty for weeks, or months (my flat hasn’t been empty for a day in 4 years, but it could happen), realtors charge you about a month rent to screen a new tenant, so there are many reasons why your landlord should accept to freeze, and even lower the rent.
I considered that possibility with my perfect tenants. Had they come to me saying ”sorry, I am having a hard time paying rent this month, I lost my job/got sick/helped my mum/…”, considering their perfect payment history, I would have given them a delay, and probably a discount.
What is the worst thing that can happen? Your landlord says no, you can either stay in the house and keep paying rent, or move somewhere cheaper. One important thing: ask for a discount way in advance. A couple of month before your lease renewal date, or as soon as you lose your job and fear financial struggle. A landlord won’t appreciate if you ask for a rebate while being already ten days late on rent.
I have never rented or been a landlord, but the amount of horror stories I have heard (from both sides) is enough for me to be grateful that I am in my own place.
I have had renter friends kicked out because the owner has decided to move in to their house.
Other friends who had price increases on every renewal of their 6 month contract.
I have a landlord friend who rented a room in his house as a way to make a little bit of extra money. He ended up having one guy who refused to take a shower without his dog. Seriously, there are some strange people out there.
The whole thing just sounds messy to me.
It is a blessing to live in your own home, unfortunately in the UK many people specially young can’t afford that. When I moved there at first I was living with roommates and have my share of horror stories, from the drunk one who put a pizza in the oven, fell asleep and almost burnt the house, to the one stalking me when I came in and out of the house, or the police coming at 2am because a roommate turned out to be a criminal making fake passports! I was so happy to become a landlady and lived with roommates for a while, but my house my rules and it was much more pleasant!
There is very old carpet in our apartment and we made a case for it to get replaced as other comparable apartments replace AT LEAST every five years. Our landlord came and looked and said “it’s really not that old and we WAIT at least five years to replace.” We are moving out end of the month 🙂
Maybe your landlord has never had bad tenants and doesn’t know that he should try to keep the good ones. I try to keep mine happy and just had their carpet shampooed. It helps keep my flat’s value too so win/win. I didn’t know it only lasted five years though, will have to budget for that!
Nice post. In the past, Mrs Scot and I have contacted the landlord directly (after previously letting through an agent) and asked about cutting out the middle man and reducing rent. This is a win-win from both sides as the landlord (hopefully) trusts you by now and you both save some cash from getting rid of agency fees!
That is a smart move! I rented my other studio flat with a company and oh did they charge me. But the tenant was pretty bad so I thought I was getting my money worth..
Back when I rented, we definitely tried. All the time actually because we were so hard up for money. And we always got rejected. I htink it was because it wasn’t one landlord who owned the building, it was a large company. And large companies have “unbreakable” policies. It’s dumb.
I don’t know about companies, but I would say that it is more complicated for them to have to put a property back on the market (dedicate one employee to put the add, schedule and attend viewings…) and they’d be more inclined to freeze or discount the rents, simply because they have so much money too! You are right, that’s dumb.
We own two rental properties and I totally agree with this! We have long term renters and we will not raise their rent because we want them to stay….forever!!!
I wish I had mine forever too! It was really nice since we had been roommates for the first year so I felt like I was living my flat to a friend.
Good post. I’ve never been a landlord, but did rent for a number of years before we bought our house. I often found that if you were a good tenant that the landlord would do pretty much anything to keep you because they want you there long term. Of course, not all landlords are that way and usually meant us moving after the first year because they just didn’t care to manage the basics.
I have had sloppy landlord too, but wouldn’t like to be one, after all your property is so expensive, angry tenants could trash it, or worse!
I have never been a landlord but we have rented. It seems you never know what you are going to get when it comes to landlords. The last one we had was quite reasonable and helpful but previously another landlord couldn’t have cared less if we were at all satisfied. If I ever rent property, I am going to make sure to listen to my tenants and build a good relationship with them.
That is what I am trying, happy tenants have done so much for me in the past three years, it is really win/win. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing horrible tenants are in my property and can’t care less about it.
Hmm… I’ve never tried to get my rent lowered, but I have had my rent lowered by a really happy landlord (it was a family member). I rent from family members now and I get a low rate anyway, so I wouldn’t want to try and get a lower rate, but I’ll keep this in mind for the future.
Asking for a lower price when you are viewing the property, specially if it is empty and you are able to move right away is a good move too. One tenant has asked me for a small discount and I agreed.
Pauline,
Nice article.
I too am a landlord and I follow the same practice of freezing my good tenants rent.
I also make it a point of going out of my way to make them happy. If they have any requests for repairs, I make sure that they are done immediately.
One other thing that I do to make them feel appreciated, is that I always give them a Target gift card at Christmas time.
Thank you Terry. I wish I had more landlords like you in the past! Small efforts on your side can really go a long way and in my case since I am not even in the same country, a lot of reassurance about my property.
Boy, there are definitely some nice landlords on here! 🙂 We are about 2 months away from our renewal, and we have tried to see if he is willing to extend our renewal, but haven’t heard from him. We have always paid on time and took care of our own repairs, but with the rental market heating up, we are a bit worried that asking for a freeze might be out of the question. Actually, asking to stay might be out of the question! 🙂
Great article!
You are right Vicky, it might be harder in very hot markets, I hope you can stay and renew your lease!
We offered to lower our tenant’s rent when he was looking around for a place with a new roommate (his gf broke up with him, hence the new roommate). We offered a cut in the rent if he signed a new 1-yr lease with the new roommate. The other guy wanted to live elsewhere, so the rent wasn’t cut – but we did end up finding new tenants that moved in the day he moved out. So no lost rent!
That is awesome! It has always worked out for me too with same day move in/out, and that still amazes me.
I wish I had stumbled upon this article when I rented my apartment. It never occurred to me that you could ask for a reduced price on a lease. This option would work great if you had a landlord with multiple empty units too.
Thanks for the great idea. I hope to be a future landlord and never thought about negotiating the price and have always been afraid of bad tenants. With your tactics this could help me keep good tenants.
Those little sacrifices on the landlord’s side aren’t the end of the world and from my point of view, my tenants are paying my mortgage, basically paying for me to own a house someday so the least I can do is make them stay and keep doing that 🙂
We are just starting as landlords, but I think if we had a great tenant, we would do whatever we could within reason to keep them.
You will take away a lot of worries by doing that, that’s for sure. Good luck with the landlording!
If you’re a good tenant, you should always ask for lower rent even if they try to raise it. Outline why you’ve been such a good tenant and tell them you know that if you move out they could possibly lose out on a couple weeks of rent which would be more than if they were to just lower the rent for you!
At the same time though, if you have a great landlord who’s always helping you out, why are you asking for lower rent? haha In this case, I probably wouldn’t do it.
That’s what I feel with my tenants, they are happy, I fix their problems quickly, and they seem to think the price is fair.
I’ve got a great tenant, but unfortunately for her, I need to raise the rent. The market is HOT in SF, and I think she’s paying about $400 below market already. Hence, I would like to raise the rent by $100.
Would you feel bad as a tenant? You know you’re getting a deal already.
Sam
That is still a great deal so nothing to feel bad about, like you say, you are in a pipping hot market. When I do price hikes to my tenants I remind them that they are free to give a month notice and leave, my market is quite hot too so I have always replaced them on the same day.
This summer I asked my landlord to decrease my rent-something I was terrified to ask since they had never raised my rent in the entire 4.5 years I have been living here. To my delight, he lowered it by $50. Not a huge amount, but anything helps. I’d like to think it’s because I’m a good tenant and they don’t want to lose me.
I understand that it was scary, I have less problems negotiating before I move in, specially if the property is empty than after a year. $50 is a goodwill gesture that is still saving you $600 per year! They definitely want to keep you even though LA is a hot market, so don’t hesitate to ask for improvement the next time, if not for a discount.
End of lease cleaning is very important when moving out and it shall be given much consideration and attention. It involves thorough cleaning and it is not the same with a typical house cleaning because it includes cleaning different furniture and fixtures, which are seldom cleaned or worse, have never been cleaned. This kind of cleaning also includes thorough cleaning of every room of your rental accommodation such as the living room, bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and even the hallways. Other tasks include meticulous vacuuming of every part of the house and thorough cleaning of floors, walls, carpet, windows and curtains.
I had a mixed bag with 2 students sharing. One with good references, turns out she didn’t pay her 1st months rent and had to be chased for it (it was a Standing Order), then 9 months later said I’m off, and didn’t pay her last months rent or any of her bills, leaving my other tenant (who had dubious references, who’s turned out to be an A* tenant) in a frenzy.
Just goes to show you can’t always trust references.
That’s right, a quick credit score check could help as well. Sorry about your bad tenant! I have had some dirty and loud ones but thankfully never a late payment.
Dear Pauline,
I liked what you said about My ”bad tenants” were noisy, dirty, loved a good scandal, and my golden perfect tenants hated them. I was lucky they accepted to move out quickly. Getting new tenants is stressful for all.
Continue this kind of articles because they are very good and useful, congratulations.
It is always a big loss for a landlord or lady to have his or her land empty for for few days because most of the landlords have to pay mortgage fees and so many other additional costs. It is better to choose the best renter and renters with good record are likely to get some advantage while renting a property. 🙂
You have some interesting ideas about keeping good tenants. For many landlords, this is a big chore to replace a good tenant that has left after occupying the property for a very long period of time. My best advice as a skip tracer and tenant screening data provider is to gather all of the facts. Be very certain of the rental applicant’s history, before signing the lease.
Be sure that you know the address history, past civil and criminal court filings. Not only are evictions important, but don’t overlook judgments, as this is often an indicator that your applicant may not be reliable at paying the rent. And, my golden nugget for a tip, is to avoid pending chapter 13 bankruptcy applicants like the plague because the landlorad can get thrown into the head of creditors even after the filing (unlike a chapter 7).
Nice article, thanks. However, I negotiate a lower rent through rentberry.com.
Thank you for sharing this insightful information. I agree that solid tenants typically have nothing to lose when it comes to asking for a rent decrease, and if they are appreciated enough by the property owner, there is a good chance they will receive what they want. This is why effective tenant screening, complete with thorough reference checks, is so important. Though you may agree not to increase the rent each lease renewal, or better yet for the tenant, agree to lower the rent as a bonus for being so good, in the end you will have a steady tenant that pays on time and doesn’t cause you issues. This is much better than a vacant property.
Hey,
I have read most of your articles, and were very helpful for me. This one is also a great article, good tenant is always be under lease conditions. And they follow all policies according to contract and pay all rent on time. By the way thanks for sharing this awesome article with us.