Landlord must figure out a way to keep a tenant full invested in the property.  The perfect tenant treats the landlord’s investment property like it’s their own personal home.  Even if tenants pays the rent on time every month, how they treat the property can still make them very bad tenants.

The standard way to mitigate tenant damage to the property is to collect a security deposit upfront, typically one month additional rent.  This deposit serves as insurance against property damage when the tenant leaves.  Unfortunately, with this method, how much rent landlords collect directly correlates with how much insurance they can secure.  Furthermore, the less a tenant pays in rent, the less invested a tenant will feel.

Landlords can turn regular paying tenants into perfect tenants with some create leasing agreements and good maintenance habits.  As a caveat, always consult a lawyer before adding non-standard provisions into lease agreements.  Assuming a state or city allows the landlord to put in minimum maintenance provisions, these can be extremely helpful. 

Some landlords have even charged a below market rental rate, but required tenants to do all maintenance on the property.  This strategy works well with established, responsible tenants.  Be careful using these provisions with first time tenants because this gives tenants much greater incentive to simply defer maintenance.  Landlords are often surprised by the conditions tenants can live in when they have to maintain the property themselves. 

In the absence of any maintenance provisions, it helps to show an interest in the property.  Being responsive to maintenance calls and checking in on a monthly basis to perform standard preventative maintenance shows tenants that a landlord is very invested in the property.  Most tenants will value this and help maintain the property.  Landlords should be eager to provide tenants paint and other light working equipment, if a tenant expresses interest in doing some upgrades to the property.

Some landlords offer bonuses to tenants that add additional value to their property.  If a tenant consistently keeps the property in great condition or upgrades appliances, carpets or fixtures, that tenant has added significant value to the property at no cost to the investor.  Encouraging this behavior with a gift card to Home Depot or Lowe’s makes the tenant feel great and further enhances the value of the property.

Regardless of the method, moving a consistently paying tenant to a true property asset pays significant dividends.  With a very small monetary investment and a lot of thoughtfulness, landlords can improve their investment tremendously.