Since buying my first investment property in Mt Pleasant at age 23, I've been a landlord in Charleston nearly 20 years now. I am very proud to say that I have never had a single day of vacancy in any of my properties. Really, not a single day and I've owned up to eight properties at one time, so I consider myself an expert in that side of the real estate world.


It's one of the things that gives me an edge over my competitors in this ultra competitive real estate world where there are more agents than houses for sale. I've been there and done it myself, with my own money on the line. I've learned a lot of lessons in that time. I always share those lessons with my investor clients so they don't have to make some of the expensive mistakes that I made while I was learning.


Here is my advice on how to keep the highest occupancy rate on your rental and make the most money from it.

MY PROPERTIES LOOK LIKE MODEL HOMES

Up until recently, Charleston has been a landlord's dream town. Landlords could find a tenant who'll pay their asking rent regardless of the condition of the property. Landlords had no incentive to put money into updating their properties. The result was lots of rentals with old carpet, laminate counters, old appliances, touched up paint and just a worn out look.

My rentals always look like model homes. I am OCD about the properties that I own. I simply cannot own an ugly place. My properties are always been in fabulous condition. You don't find nasty carpet or laminate counters or gold plated door knobs in my rentals. Instead it's always fresh paint, shiny hardwood flooring, quartz counters, updated fixtures & stainless appliances. Once a tenant moves out, I get everything professionally cleaned, replace anything that old or outdated and make it look like it was just built.

Now, I hear you say that sounds expensive to update a property. It is, but you're going to update it at some point, either when you buy it or just before you sell it.

If you renovate it when you buy it, then you can charge more rent, get better tenants and higher occupancy. OR, you can have a crappy rental with low rental rates, vacancies, less than ideal tenants and then renovate right before you sell it.

I always do the renovation up front, so I can get the higher rent that offsets the cost of the renovation. You'll recoup a lot of the cost of the renovation over the time of your ownership.

MODEL HOMES ATTRACT MODEL TENANTS

When you have a beautiful looking home for rent, you'll attract a ton of interested people. Remember, the average landlord doesn't update their property so those 10% who do, stand out among the competition. I've ALWAYS had multiple applicants on my properties.

Then you get to pick and choose your ideal tenant, rather than desperately renting to anyone who will rent your place that's been vacant for a month. I do an in depth interview to make sure they are a good fit for my property.

Tenants are going to be taking care of one of your biggest assets so you want the best possible tenant in your home.

INVEST IN MARKETING YOUR PROPERTY

How am I able to get some many applicants on my properties ? Because I spend the money to market to them.

I spend $200 on getting professional photos & $100 to set up a simple SquareSpace website for my property.

Now I can post those enticing photos of my beautiful home, and write a blurb about how amazing my house is, the lifestyle you can lead there, my favorite local restaurants.

I can add a floor plan, I can include some FAQs to be proactive about the questions tenants always ask anyway.

If you're a tenant looking to rent a place and you see a two line ad on Craigslist with some dark iPhone photos, then you see my ad which has gorgeous photos and a link to a website with all your questions already answered, which one are going to want to see ?

Think about it, if I rent my house out for $2000 per month, that's $24,000 I'm going to get in rent in a year. The photos and website will cost less than 1% of the income that I’ll generate from the property and it will put my rental in the top 99.9% of rentals being advertised.

45 DAY RULE

I advertise my property for rent 45 days before the move in date. The reason I do this earlier than most landlords is because I want organized people who have their life in order renting from me. These people are looking this early, they want to know where they are living in 30-45 days.

You do not want someone who needs to move in next week. If you don't have a place to live next week and you're scrambling last minute, then you're a mess and I don't want to be relying on you to pay me rent.

Trust me on this, organized people who plan ahead make excellent tenants.


OPEN HOUSE, NOT DEDICATED SHOWINGS

The week after I start advertising my rental, I do an open house on a Saturday for one hour. That's it, I don't do individual showings at prospective tenant's request. I tell everyone interested that I'll be there from 1 until 2pm on Saturday afternoon and they can come see it then.

Here are the reasons that I do it this way :

1. Remember, I've generated a lot of interest in my property, so by having all the people come at once, they see there's other people viewing it who are their competition and it increases their urgency. Urgency is the key to everything in real estate. I've seen people half interested in a property become obsessed by it because they see someone else wants it. It's true for selling as well as renting. You want urgency !

Before they even get to the house, they are intrigued when I respond to their showing request by saying "I've had so much interest in it that I'm just going to have an open house, I don't have time to show it individually to everyone who wants to see it". It's already standing out among the properties they are going to look at.


2. To keep the current tenant happy. If you've passed the test to be a tenant of mine, you're a good person and I want to keep you happy, so I'm not going to inconvenience you with a lot of showings. I want to keep you happy.


3. Renters are frustratingly flaky. If they are just coming to look at a rental, they're looking at 10 others too and they've no skin in the game, they don't care about you or your time, so 20% of them simply don't show up to a scheduled viewing. I've learned this the hard way........


BE SELECTIVE

Don't just take the first bozo who wants your place. You're going into a relationship with your tenants (hopefully not romantic, don't do that for a million reasons), but you're going to talk occasionally, you're going to have move in and move out walk throughs, bad tenants can make you wish you'd never become an investor, but good tenants can become good friends.

I am always super selective, I take my time and find a good tenant. By starting to find a tenant 45 days out, I've got time to be fussy if that first open house doesn't get me an excellent tenant.


LONG TERM TENANT ARE THE BEST

Find the tenant who is going to stay long term. I've had tenants stay for 6 years, they are the people you want. Despite all my good advice on finding a tenant above, it's still a pain to have to rent out your place, so when you're sorting through your multiple applications, see if you can figure out who may stay for a few years. There's no clear advice for how to figure this out, but be clever and use your common sense.

I very rarely sign a lease longer than one year. Too many things can happen in a year, both with the house, the tenant, you, the economy. Sign a one year lease and if they are good tenants, contact them 60 days out from the expiration date and see if they want to extend by another year.


HAPPY TENANTS = HAPPY LANDLORD

I am the best landlord in Charleston. Yes, it's official, I am and I tell my tenants that. No matter what goes wrong, no matter how minor it is, once they contact me, it get fixed immediately. I don't do patch repair jobs, if something needs replacing, it gets replaced.

It’s my investment, I want to keep it in the best possible condition and patch jobs just end up costing you more money in the long term and annoy your tenants.

EXCELLENT TENANTS ARE WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD

I don't raise rents on excellent tenants who stay for a few years. It costs me money to find a tenant, so if they stay, pay their rent on time and take good care of my house, I don't raise the rent. It's not worth the extra $50 month.

THE GOOD DAYS ARE COMING TO AN END

The market for landlords is about to get a lot tougher in Charleston since there are so many apartments being built, read this article from the local paper.

It’s what I’ve been telling my clients for a long time, there’s too much being built. Many of these new buildings have one month free rent incentives and it’s going to drag the whole rental market down.

I have followed the rules above for nearly twenty years now and they work, so if you're in the landlord business, you'd be smart to follow my advice.