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Tips For Showing Occupied Units

System - Monday, August 27, 2018

The city of Fort Lauderdale is experiencing a boom in innovative construction, exciting renovations, new additions, improvements of infrastructure, public buildings, cultural centers, and much more housing. As more and more people gravitate to the rich, vibrant, diverse, and beautiful city of Fort Lauderdale, the real estate market is getting hotter and hotter.

Fort Lauderdale home values are increasing more and more every year. According to the website Zillow, home prices in Fort Lauderdale went up 6.7% since June of 2017 and are expected to rise 5.5% more by June of 2019.

The average monthly price to rent an apartment in Fort Lauderdale is also on the rise. Over the past year, rental rates have increased by 4%. Trendy lofts in the new up-and-coming hot spots of the city like Colee Hammock are proving more and more desirable to renters.

It is a great time to be a property owner or a real estate investor in Fort Lauderdale. Now, is the opportune moment to capitalize on the hot real estate market. However, property management is time consuming, stressful, and could cost you lots of out-of-pocket money. Hiring a property management company will ensure your success as a property owner and investor.

If you are thinking of investing in, renting, or buying property in the Fort Lauderdale area, Mayfair Property Management, LLC will take the burden and the hassle of marketing, tenant screening, rent collection, maintenance, financial reporting, and so much more off of your shoulders. Mayfair was built by investors for investors. We work hard to care for your investment so you can do the things you love.

From dealing with tenant laws, applications, screenings, maintenance, move-ins and outs, and much more, renting out a property and managing a rental is one of the most laborious, risky, and stressful tasks for a property owner. If you are a property owner and want to rent out your space, hiring a property management company handles all the logistics, burdens, and stress of the rental process for you. In the Fort Lauderdale area, Mayfair Property Management, LLC will ensure your success and peace of mind in the rental process of your property from start to finish with every tenant. Mayfair will help you maximize your rental’s investment potential.

Fort Lauderdale is a bustling city, and it is getting busier and busier every year. People are constantly coming and going. Therefore, the city is teeming with renters. When it comes to turning over rentals from one tenant to the next, a property owner has two choices in showing the unit. They can either wait until the current tenant vacates completely or they can opt to show an occupied unit.

There are pros and cons to both options, but showing an occupied unit usually saves property owners a lot more money. This is because they are not losing a month of rent waiting for the unit to be vacant and property owners do not have to pay out of their own expenses to run the utilities in a vacant unit.

However, there are significant risks in showing occupied units. For example, you cannot ensure the unit will be clean when you show it and that the current tenant will be absent. In this article, we will provide some tips for showing an occupied unit. Hopefully, by following these tips, your showings will run smoothly, and you can seamlessly move from one tenant to the next.

The first tip is to communicate with the current tenant. Communicate frequently with them, so they know exactly what dates you are planning on showing the unit and at what times.

Check the tenant laws for your state about how much notice you need to give the current tenant before you may show the unit they are living in. You have the right to show the unit, but your tenant has the right to live there as long as they are paying their rent. Therefore, there are laws in each state that dictate how much reasonable notice must be given before a landlord can show an occupied unit. This is typically 24 hours, but it does vary from state to state.

The next tip is to work hard to maintain good relations with all your tenants. Having a good relationship with a current tenant is very beneficial when you are going to show their unit. Before showing the unit, you can ask them to clean it and secure their pets if they have any.

Now, you cannot force a tenant to clean a unit and secure animals, but you can offer incentives. For example, you could give a tenant a gift certificate to a very popular restaurant in the area if they are willing to keep their place neat and tidy. Finding a good restaurant is not hard in Fort Lauderdale, where five-star cuisine is right around almost every corner.

An important tip that many people do not think about is to be very cautious about the signage outside of a rental. You do not want to use “For Rent” signs outside of occupied units. This is because any prospective renters could see the sign and knock on the doors unannounced to ask to come inside the unit while the current tenant is still there. It is awful for landlords to have their tenants disturbed in this way and leaves a bitter taste in tenants’ mouths when they leave.

If you are going to use signage outside of your property, make sure that the “For Rent” sign also says “Do Not Disturb Occupants” and “Showing by Appointment Only.”

The last tip also applies to the safety and security of your current tenant and your rental unit. Real estate agents are required by law to give proper notice to the current occupants before showing a rental unit. We suggest that you do not use the coded lock boxes attached to the front doors of rentals to store the key to the unit. Anyone who sees and knows the code can get into the lock box. This could create a lot of problems and potentially dangerous situations with illegal showings.