Property Management: Navigating Housing Inflation
2022 has seen a continued climb in housing costs. Between a pandemic-inspired housing boom and rising inflation, rental unit management has required increasing costs. As those costs are also passed along to tenants, the price of rental properties is, again, on the rise. How can you effectively navigate housing inflation? Here are a few important considerations for managing your tenant relationships.
Transparently explain impacts of housing inflation to tenants
Like any other important relationship, transparency is a key element to maintaining positive interactions with your tenants. As inflation and other economic shifts impact your properties, explain to your tenants exactly where those costs are occurring. By explaining where costs are derived and why they’re being passed along to tenants, you avoid the negative perception that you’re capitalizing on housing shortages to simply squeeze current renters for more profits.
Parks Property Management takes it a step further, claiming, “One of the things tenants will always expect from their landlords and property managers is transparency. Communication is important between landlords and tenants, and if your renters think you’re trying to hide something or you’re not being responsive, you will lose them as soon as their lease period comes to an end.”
Demonstrate where tenants can observe your property’s benefits
As Forbes notes, “Property managers are also utilizing software portals to set up and send emails and text messages to help streamline the maintenance process, which creates more proactive communication with tenants. Today, people tend to screen or ignore calls, but a text from their property manager that more information is required on their maintenance request will likely get their attention and prompt response.”
Covideo is an excellent platform for these very use cases. You can create a video in seconds and send via email or text directly to your tenant, while also being able to track when they’ve opened it, how much of the video they’ve watched, and how many times. This is excellent for providing evidence of maintenance work, describing upcoming changes to billing, due to housing inflation, or even just checking in to see how their experience is going. And, with video reply, tenants can engage you just the same—showing evidence of a leak, asking about a policy, or simply giving an update response.
Keep the line open for future discussions on housing inflation and other impacts
Being able to discuss the impact of circumstances surrounding housing inflation retroactively can help build affinity between you and your tenants. In addition to this, it’s important to point out, you should also be emphasizing proactive communication. Establishing communicative channels where tenants know, in advance, that they can start a conversation or continue a discussion will help keep you with an active pulse on your managed properties.
Think Realty adds, “Your tenants don’t need to love all their communication options. Just one. You, however, need to make sure someone can respond effectively when a tenant uses their communication method of choice.” However you choose to establish lines of communication, make sure you’re attentive and reward tenants for their use of whichever channel they select.
The Takeaway
Housing inflation, labor shortages, and other day-to-day occurrences all impact the cost of your managed properties. These creeping increases aren’t foreign to tenants, they’re seeing the same shifts occur elsewhere in their spending, as well. However, by choosing to be transparent, demonstrating where those costs are coming from (and how tenants are benefiting), and encouraging proactive, continual communication, you’re more likely to nurture understanding tenants. Additionally, those tenants are more likely to continue to re-up their contracts which, of course, is to the benefit of everyone involved.
Interested in more tips for nurturing happy tenants, increasing the efficiency of your communication, and improving the overall rental experience? Speak with one of our property management experts today!
