Tenant Gifts

[Kristen T.]

 Forgive the slight repetitiveness as I have gone through the other "gifts for tenants" discussions, but I am looking for current opinions on special occasion gifts.  Yes, I am one of those who already does small gift cards at the Holidays as a token of appreciation for my tenants and I enjoy doing it.  Sometimes it's a gift basket I send, sometimes it's a GC to a restaurant, but for the good tenants, I always want them to know they're appreciated and I enjoy doing this small thing for them.  

My newest tenants at one location are absolutely the cat's meow when it comes to tenants...I've had no one like them yet.  They're  a young wonderful military family and although they've only signed for one year, their intention is the next 3 unless a transfer happens.  I just completed their first quarterly walkthrough and was VERY impressed.  

The question is, they just had their 3rd child.  She was 2 weeks from delivery when I went for the walkthrough and I would like to send a little token gift card and card.  No, not to be their best friend, but just because they are very good people, and deserve kindness in return.  My husband thinks I'm nuts because we'll be sending out holiday cards and GC's in about a month.  What do you think?  Send or no?  Shall I wait and do something a little nicer for the holidays since they're +1 maybe?  Because they're new and they don't know my holiday track record, I also don't want them to think I just give gifts all the time, although, I really don't think they're those kind of people, but just looking for others opinions.

[Steven Wiltz]

it's a business. The question you have to ask yourself is, how will the tenant(s)  view this? Will they see it as growing the relationship along personal lines? Maybe if someone from the business other than you, the person they mostly deal with, sent something. 

Frankly, I'm surprised you send Christmas cards. 

My gift is a competitively priced, clean safe place to live every month. Anything else, even the other direction (tenant gives), blurs the line. They might be the cats meow (what are you like 100? LOL), but keep the line of business-only clear. 

IMO