Tenants are Employees not Customers
“Your tenants are your employees” is the novel approach that Mike Butler uses to manage his residents. From the first interaction with the tenant, Mike trains his tenants to not cause problems – including late rent payments. When they pay on time, the tenant gets rewarded.
Most tenants would like to own their own homes – if they had the credit and could afford it. The housing crisis is good proof of that – all those people flocked to buy even though they could not afford it (and credit really was not checked). The truth is that, at least in the class of tenants that Mike targets, the tenants is really not able to own a home.
Many landlords feel that the tenant is a ‘customer’. Since the ‘customer is always right’, this attitude can lead the landlord down the wrong path. Customer tenants get away with late rent payments and a host of other problems. Employee tenants have responsibilities and see that good performance is rewarded.
Try this exercise. Read the following statements and see if you can substitute the word “tenant” for the word “employee”.
- You should have a good relationship with good employees.
- Good employees are valuable.
- Exceptional employees should be rewarded for outstanding performance.
- Employees have responsibilities.
- Employees are expected to perform satisfactorily or suffer the consequences for poor performance.
- An employee who is a bad apple, can ruin the good apples.
- Allowing one employee to remain with poor performance can bring down performance and attitudes of good employees.
- Not treating all employees the same is not fair.
- Employee appreciation programs promote good performance, loyalty, productivity, and profit.
- Employee’s length of service should be a guideline of additional benefits to employees promoting employee retention.
- Outstanding or exceptional community service or personal achievements by employees or their immediate family members should be recognized.
- Employees with poor performance should be dealt with in a fair, consistent manner, including termination.
Just like above, substitute the word “property manager” for the word “employer” and “tenant” for “employee”.
- Employer should be responsive to employees concerns.
- Employer should be a leader, not a boss.
- Employer has responsibilities along with consequences.
Changing this attitude will provide a tremendous boost your landlording business. You will get back more of your time and earn more money.
