Do you ever not do a qtr. insp. 4 tenants that don't complain?

[Account Closed]

I just closed on 4 doors. Two of the tenants seem to be ideal with rent being paid on-time, considering it being put in the mail, etc. 

Would you ever hold off from doing a tenant inspection save on a potential "outlay"? 

I'm interested in hearing your feedback?

[Marcia Maynard]

@Account Closed   This is a great opportunity for you!  Congratulations!

We've purchased tenanted multiplexes before. We once made the mistake of not inspecting all of the units prior to purchase, so didn't know fully what we had walked into.

It's imperative that you do a through inspection of each unit as soon as you can!  

Goals:

• Meet the tenants and begin to build a positive relationship. This is a chance for them to learn your management style and for you to observe their demeanor and living habits. 
• Ask the tenants if there's anything that's broken, malfunctioning, or needs maintenance attention. You'd be surprised by what they may identify that's perhaps not evident.
• Catch up on deferred maintenance. Attention to this will endear your tenants to you and you'll likely get good cooperation and rapport as a result. Well maintained properties will lead to fewer urgent service calls and less property damage.
• Identify opportunities for property improvement.
• Clarify your expectations and tenant expectations.
• Review the terms of the rental agreement.

You'll be presenting your tenants with a new agreement to replace the one they had previously. If their previous lease was month-to-month, you can do this easily and quickly. If their previous lease was long term, you need to honor the terms of the previous lease until it expires OR negotiate with the tenant to mutually terminate the previous agreement and enter into yours. If you don't raise the rent at this juncture and/or offer a new lease/rental agreement with better terms, they are likely to agree to abandon the old agreement and enter into yours right away.

Set a reasonable time-frame for periodic "maintenance" inspections. 

When a tenant and property is new to us, we are on site more frequently. As the property condition and tenant behavior becomes known to us, we can often reduce the number of full inspections to no more than once a year.   

However, we also do limited inspections as the seasons change to attend to certain maintenance needs. This also allows us the opportunity to observe if the tenant is following the terms of the rental agreement.

Our current seasonal inspection focus is on heating systems, weatherizing, yard cleanup and gutters.

Hope this helps!

.