When you’re renting a single-family rental property, your tenants must have accessible ways to contact you. Not only is this great for keeping an eye on your highly valued property, but certainly it can moreover help you preserve an excellent relationship with your tenant. But of course, there are solid considerations 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. Therefore, what are the appropriate ways for tenants to contact you? Let’s check out some of the best solutions for tenants to get in touch with their landlords or Flower Mound property owners as indicated by the experts.
Phone and Email
At the least, you should have a dedicated phone line and email for your rental property business. This is true whether you have one rental property or a dozen. A phone number and email are the most professional methods for tenants to reach you. Having a dedicated phone and email can make certain that all communications are routed through the proper channels, that communications are documented, and that nothing gets lost.
Emergency Maintenance Line
Another vital communication tool to put to use 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 must be clear to the tenant that this is an emergency line only. This will help make certain that tenants only use this line for emergencies and that they perceive there may be additional charges for using this service.
Tenant Portal
Another appropriate way to stay in touch with your tenants and make sure all communications are conveyed through the proper channels is to keep a tenant portal. A tenant portal is an online system that permits tenants to submit non-emergency maintenance requests, pay rent, and contact you all in one place. A tenant portal is intended specifically for property owners and landlords, and most allow you and your tenants to send messages and information back and forth. By making the best use of a tenant portal, you can stay organized and make it a point that all communications are well documented.
Social Media
If you are quite familiar with and comfortable using social media to promote your rental properties, you may equally like to look into using it as a technique to communicate with your tenants. This is an appropriate way to provide tenants with updates on maintenance, changes to the property, or any other necessary information. They can moreover ask questions and allow you to reply to concerns. If you select to use social media for tenant communication, make certain 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 necessitate more than one form of communication. Moreover irrespective of which options you choose, it’s vital to set clear ground rules about when and why your tenant should contact you. It would aid if you likewise had clear, pre-determined consequences for when tenants try to breach your rules. One of the appropriate ways you can carry out this is to model and encourage respectful communication and consistently enforce your boundaries. By being clear regarding your expectations, you can help make sure that communications with your tenant are appropriate and sent through proper channels.
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what method or combination of methods you choose for tenant communication, it’s necessary to be professional, consistent, and clear. Another best solution to handle tenant communications is to hire a professional property management company like Real Property Management Lakeview 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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