When you think about increasing ROI with your Cleveland rental property, you likely think about the important things:
- On-time rent collection
- Preventative maintenance
- Low vacancy and turnover
- Increasing rental values
One of the things you might forget to consider is communication.
Maybe it isn’t immediately obvious that communication has an impact on what you earn in the short and long term.
It does.
Good communication delivers effective results and more profitability. Here are some of the reasons you need to make sure you’re communicating well with your tenants, vendors, property managers, and community partners.
Good Communication Sets Expectations
Expectations need to be understood by all parties. If you’re working with a Cleveland property manager, you’ll need to talk about how often you want to be contacted. Maybe you’re very hands-off and you only want to hear from your management team if something goes wrong. Perhaps you’d prefer monthly check-ins. Set those expectations, otherwise you’ll waste a lot of time chasing down your management company or your property manager will be confused about why you aren’t returning their calls.
Before you begin working with a property management company, talk to them about what you’re hoping to accomplish. Your goals need to align with your property manager’s methods and values. If everyone is excited and working towards the end goal, you’re going to earn more.
If you’re managing your own rental home, have a similar conversation with your tenants. Set your own expectations for them and for the tenancy. You want to set them up for success because a good tenant relationship means your rent will come in on time, your property will be maintained, and the lease terms will be followed.
Responsive Communication and Rental Property Maintenance
Maintenance is often one of the costliest parts of owning a Cleveland rental property. You aren’t going to increase your ROI when the furnace breaks down in the middle of a cold winter or the appliances need to be replaced every few years. You need to have a maintenance budget in place.
More importantly, you need to be responsive when it comes to taking care of your tenant’s repair requests. When something is broken or needs to be replaced, over-communication is often the best policy.
If you’re working with a property manager in Cleveland, talk about your budget, your reserves, and how you want maintenance work to be handled. You probably don’t want to be called for an approval before a garbage disposal is unclogged for $50. But, a $5,000 roof repair may be something you want to discuss before the work is done. Communication is critical here. You need to talk to your property manager about what kind of maintenance can be done using their judgment alone and what types of repairs will require approval from you.
Retaining Cleveland Tenants
Your ROI will always improve when you’re able to retain your tenants. Turnover and vacancy are expensive, and both those things will hurt what you earn on your Cleveland investment. What will help you retain good tenants?
Communication.
When you have great tenants in place who pay rent on time, take care of the property, and cause no problems, you want to make sure you are keeping those tenants.
These are just a few ways good communication can help your ROI. Communicating well also helps you have a better investment experience overall.
We’re great at communicating, and we’d like to tell you more about our Cleveland property management services. Contact us at IIP Management. We work with owners in the Greater Cleveland area.
