Keep your tenants, retain your residents!

The goal of any business is to grow and expand, but also equally import is to maintain and retain what you have- whether that be resources, clients or occupied space!

On the commercial side of the real estate industry, companies want to keep long-tenured successful tenants in their buildings. Having those strong anchor tenants help increase traffic to the properties and also drive other tenants to stay there- keeping your occupancy rates high, your revenue dependable and your budgets more accurate!

So what is the secret to ensure these tenants will remain with you for years to come? Here are 5 simple practices you can incorporate into what you are currently doing:

1. Inform residents of regulations up front- make sure the tenant has a copy of their lease. In fact, you can store your copy inside of MRI Commercial Management so you can quickly have access to it electronically to go over any questions they may have.
2. Address complaints quickly – Even if you are not able to fix what is wrong or address to situation immediately, let clients know that their complaint was received and is being considered or worked on.
3. Keep up with preventive maintenance and service request activities – Using MRI Workspeed can help you stay on top of these activities and track when you are not addressing these matters in a timely fashion.
4. Offer a grace period when requesting rent – MRI’s late fee calculations can define when you are actually charging a fee for tardy rent. This feature allows you to give your tenants some leeway before that late letter is automatically sent out from the system.
5. Form closer relationships with your tenants – send them personal letters or drop by for things unrelated to the business.

In the multifamily market, the above list is important to residents as well, but to retain them in today’s busy world a 24/7 leasing office is necessary. MRI Resident Connect allows busy residents to view and pay their statement online as well as submit any maintenance requests. Meanwhile, MRI Secure Sign allows residents to renew their lease without ever having to take any time off work to step foot in your office.

Implementing some of these practices into your business now will help you retain these residents and tenants in future. There are many other practices certain businesses have found successful such as community cookouts or building potluck parties. Do you have any success stories you can share?