Tips for avoiding having to turn over tenants during winter/fall?

[Noureen A S.]

I just read through a BP blog post about how to avoid potentially long vacancies for tenant leases that end in the fall/winter.

I'm closing on the rental property at the end of this week, in December. One amazing tip for owners closing on rental properties in the fall/winter was to have the first tenant's term end/renew in June, so I can take advantage of the peak moving season.

Therefore, it looks like I'll need to...

1. Modify the first tenant's lease agreement to state that the lease would end on May 31st (or 6 mths from the date of the agreement if, for instance, I find the tenant in the middle of January)...
2. ... and also inform all prospective tenants, in advance, that the first lease will be 6 mths long but every successive lease term would be 1 yr long.

Sound about right? Am I missing anything? I don't see any prospects taking issue with this as long as they have the option to renew their lease (provided we have a good landlord-tenant relationship during the first shortened term).

Thank you in advance!

[Adam Gollatz]

Well then.... 

You could start them off on whatever term lease gets them to your desired date, say 6 months. That might turn off some renters who would be afraid of you not renewing forcing them to move, or you raising the rent. The other downside is that they might leave after 6 months, and turnover has costs. To mitigate that, you could offer an 18 month lease. Downside is they could turn out to be bad tenants and a long lease could turn them off too. If you want to get really fancy there is what some of the big apartment buildings do. They offer any lease term you want, but they just charge different amounts for the different periods to guide you into an optimal renewal time for them.

Personally, given my market, I would just do the 1 year lease with a 60 day renewal. Approach them ~80 days before the lease is up, and ask if they want to resign and at this point ask them to sign a 6 month lease to get on track with a June move out date. At this point you should have some sort of professional relationship with them. Give them a week to decide and you have 70ish days to find a tenant if they dont want to resign.