When renting a single-family rental property, your tenants will need to have convenient ways to contact you. This is not just perfect for keeping an eye on your precious property, but it can additionally help you keep a good relationship with your tenant. At the same time, there are reasons not to give your tenants your personal phone number and email, not least of which is the temptation for the tenant to abuse the privilege. So, what are the best ways for tenants to contact you? Let’s explore some of the most excellent ways for tenants to get in touch with their landlords or Warrick property owners as suggested by the pros.
Phone and Email
At a minimum, you should have a dedicated phone line and email for your rental property business. That’s true whether you have one rental property or a dozen. A phone number and email are the most professional way for tenants to communicate with you. Having a dedicated phone and email can ensure that all communications are routed through the proper channels, that communications are documented, and that nothing falls through the cracks.
Emergency Maintenance Line
An additional important communication tool to put into place is an emergency maintenance line your tenants can call after regular office hours. This line should be answered by a live person, not a recording, and it should be clear to the tenant that this is an emergency line only. This will help ensure that tenants only use this line for emergencies and that they know there may be additional charges for using this service.
Tenant Portal
Another great way to stay in touch with your tenants and ensure all communications are routed through the proper channels is to create a tenant portal. A tenant portal is an online system that allows tenants to submit non-emergency maintenance requests, pay rent, and contact you all in one place. A tenant portal is designed especially for property owners and landlords, and most allow you and your tenants to send messages and information back and forth. By using a tenant portal, you can stay organized and ensure that all communications are properly documented.
Social Media
If you are comfortable using social media to promote your rental properties, you can also think about using it as a way to communicate with your tenants. This is a great way to provide tenants with updates on maintenance, changes to the property, or any other important information. They can also ask questions and allow you to act in response to concerns. If you decide to use social media for tenant communication, be sure to use a private messaging system or private page so that your conversations are not made public.
Set Clear Boundaries
Communicating effectively with tenants may require more than one form of communication. But regardless of which options you choose, it’s important to set clear ground rules about when and why your tenant should contact you. It would help if you also had clear, pre-determined consequences for when tenants try to go around your rules. One of the best things you can do is to model and encourage respectful communication and consistently enforce your boundaries. By being clear about your expectations, you can help ensure that communications with your tenant are appropriate and sent through proper channels.
The bottom line is that no matter what method or combination of methods you choose for tenant communication, it’s important to be professional, consistent, and clear. Another great way to handle tenant communications is to hire a professional property management company like Real Property Management Results to do it for you. Contact us online to learn more about our tenant portal and other professional property management tools.
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