Attracting Tenants with Incentives or Gifts

Attracting Tenants with Incentives or Gifts
Author: Joshua Dorkin • URL: http://www.biggerpockets.com/

Sometimes landlords need to use incentives to keep their tenants happy, or in the case of a bad rental market, to attract new tenants. A few of the ideas I’ve read about in our forums are:

Keep ‘em happy ideas:

- New A/C Units
- New Fans
- Upgraded hardware like towel bars and knobs
- Starbucks/Blockbuster gift cards
- Small gifts on the holidays

Ideas for attracting new tenants:

- Free High-Speed Internet (cable/dsl)
- First month of rent for free
- Washer/Dryer Unit in the unit
- Paying moving expenses or moving truck fees
- Discounting first month’s rent
- Paying utilities, etc.
- Free renters insurance.
- Free Wi-Fi

While others may believe that “keep ‘em happy” gifts are a waste, I think it's always a nice gesture of goodwill. If a great tenant is considering leaving, perhaps offering one of these incentives will work to keep them. One of the most important things to remember is that landlords are in business, and must treat it as so. What tenants basically want is a landlord who takes care of things and leaves them alone.

The main reason to use these incentives is to get people in the door and to occupy your vacant units. If you’re unable to attract tenants because of a slow rental market, maybe these ideas can help you to either bring in people who weren’t considering the unit in the first place or attract people deciding between someone else’s apartment and yours.