What can self-managing landlords do to bring in good tenants?
Diane Bukowski: Most important during the application process to do diligent reference checks on own tenants so we like to explain it as though to landlords. Imagine you are conducting a job interview when you're going to hire that person. So you wouldn't hire an employee without verifying their background and contacting previous employers.
Well, you shouldn't accept a tenant without finding out their previous rental history, contacting personal referees. And so, aside from doing the due diligence checks, we also recommend carrying out a tenancy search and we use the national tenancy database.
So that gives the landlord a bit of peace of mind that there's no previous court rulings, or no issues in that tenant's history that may impact on their lease. So check the references, approach it as though you're hiring an employee and conduct a tenancy check.
How can private landlords hold onto good tenants?
Diane Bukowski: It's being diligent about things like repair and maintenance. So if uhmm, don't delay on acting on something because what might be a small thing to repair now can quite easily become far more expensive if you don't deal with it.
So there's a lot of landlords fall into that trap and they think oh well yeah, it'll be okay or they do a temporary repair. So it's paying attention to the quality of the property, getting onto things quickly because they're always cheaper to fix as soon as the issue emerges.
