So if a tenant calls you as their property manager and says they need to break the lease, always be amiable and willing to “help” THEM get out of their lease. Establish right away that you are doing them a favour by helping them. They are not ‘helping’ you re rent your place, you are helping them to be free from liability. You are willing to do them this favour “though it is not part of my job, you guys have been great so I am willing to do what I can to help you”. Explain to them which areas of the lease they want to review; lease break fees, how long they are liable etc etc. Let them know that you’ll do your part but the responsibility lies with them to make this happen with the least amount of money coming out of THEIR pockets as possible.

- Our lease break fee is 1000.00 up front. This must be termed as “Liquidated Damages” in Alberta, to make it comply with the Residential Tenancies Act. Not as a “fee”. Speaking of the RTA, you cannot collect double rent, so by law, when you find someone to rent it, you HAVE to let the previous tenants out of theirs.
So let them now that you are willing to help them to get out of their lease, but here are some things they should know:
- Let them know you will not advertise the place for rent and start doing showings until the 1000.00 is received. This usually gets the money order to your office that same day. THEN post your ads.
- Let them know may have to do showings and that clutter is a killer so they must have their place spic and span. Even when moving, it must look organized with boxes piled in one spot, not left chaotic. Any tips you normally use to show a place, tell them and get them to do them.
- They are liable for the rent and utilities until someone else is found that will pay it, whether they are still living there or not. “Do not turn off utilities until we let you know what date to do it by. If you do, you will be responsible for paying the reconnect fees for the next tenants, which will be more than if you just left them on until someone takes over the lease”
- If you are in a tough re rental time, let them know a realistic timeline of when you think they will be out.
- Advise them against doing somethng like cancelling their post dated cheques. Let them know this will only put you on opposite teams instead of the same one, and it will affect their bank account, not yours. You have nothing to lose, they do.
- Suggest they do their own advertising. Explain you will still have to approve the people, but they are welcome to find people to apply.

This is also a great time to get your maintenance people in without having to do it when vacant. Tenants who normally wouldn’t want to have painters in while they live there, are much obliging when they know it will mean a quicker re rent and thus them being free of their lease sooner. The vacancy you may have been planning to take at the end of their lease anyway, may not be necessary now.

So re-cap;
1) Put the onus on them, with you helping.
2) Let them know to keep utilities on and the place clean.
3) Use it as an opportunity to have them do more work, make your life easier and find tenants while rent is still being guaranteed by the previous tenants.

If you’ve put great tenants in there in the first place, and their circumstances have changed, they’ll be willing and ready to do whatever you need to and as long as you stay on their team, it can be a great way to find another great tenant while rent is still being guaranteed by the original ones. Can be a great win/win.

Happy renting!

Nothing worse than it being -35C, its just after Christmas, approaching January 1^st and you still have no renter.  You’ve heard, or seen the hard way that if you have a vacancy come January, you’ll probably have it until March 1st…not many moving here or moving places in January.  The dread sets in.  You can almost feel the dollars floating out of your bank account.

Then you get a phone call  “Hi, I’d like to take the place you have for rent”.  A feeling of overwhelming relief….but should it be?  The toughest part of in house or self managing is that the ups and downs of being an investor, are yours and yours only.  No property manager to take the emotional ups and downs for you and tell you about them once they are all better,  just all you, riding the rollercoaster, butterflies and all.  If you are going to be in the game long term, the 10% or so that you pay to a Property Manager are well worth it for this one aspect only, nevermind the many other benefits they can bring. 

When we are in an emotional situation (certainly paying money to a mortgage that we didn’t count on paying out of pocket), we are NOT in a position to be making decisions.  So don’t.  Your opinion can not be trusted, your gut feeling is probably tainted,  you  are in what would be considered a conflict of interest and therefore, should bow out of the decision making.  So if you don’t have a manager to help, you’d better have some rules in place to keep you from making emotional and thus bad decisions.  Set your own rules, before you hit those times, so that when you do, you’re set.  It may be a credit score.  Say 630 is the very minimum you will take for a low end place and 680 for a higher end place. Maybe its that they have to give you a criminal record check and it must be 100% clean.  Maybe its that they have to have lived in their current place for at least 2 years and worked at the same place for at least two years or have a VERY good reason why not (moved to Alberta for work).  It could be a combination of all of these as is the case in our office.  By putting these ‘rules’ in place, you take the emotions out and it becomes a formula again.  THE DECISION IS MADE FOR US, NOT BY US. In times of high emotion, this is invaluable.   REIN^TM talks very much about taking emotions out of investing and we often think of it when we are purchasing a property, but it doesn’t stop with the purchasing.  It must continue throughout the complete cycle of investing. 

 So most of us that are investors are not ‘live by the rules’ kind of people, otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be investing, so self discipline is essential.  MAKE it unemotional.  Do not give in to temptation to let your gut instinct make the decision.

When a nicely dressed, respectful young man with great credit, rents your detached garage behind your already rented Edmonton investment property, supposedly for his sports car (which he showed up driving). You figure you’ve got a pretty good gig going (especially for 350.00 a month!). Ah, too good to be true? Guess so.

Good thing we gave our name and phone number to the neigbors! A call from them alerted us to a grow op which we wouldn’t have found out about for awhile, if ever. We found out about it within 6 weeks of him being there and we were able to let the renter know we knew and told him to leave within the week if he didn’t want anyone else to know (ie the police). He left quietly and without problems we then called in his forwarding address to the police.

More examples;
- neighbors warned us that our fence had been hit by a spun out car and even had the license plate for us so we didn’t have to foot the bill to fix.
- the person we leased to had left the province and left some ‘guys from work’, renting her place off her. The neighbors alerted us to a firepit in the middle of the lawn (no bricks, gravel etc) and multiple parties in the previous couple of weeks. In investigating, we found out that unauthorized people who were already mistreating the inside of our property too, were living there. They left within a few days….in our opinion, this one could have cost us thousands, based on the damages they’d made in such a short time.

A pre printed note template that you keep in your car and slip in the mailbox of the neighbors, immediately after doing a move in:
Hi there,
My name is _____________ and I am the property manager for _______________ (address).
We do our best to find quiet, responsible and respectful people to live in the places we take care of and have done our best to do this with the address above. Please let us know if you are having any trouble that can’t be worked out between yourself and your neighbor or if there is anything you think we should know about regarding the tenants or the home itself.

We appreciate your help in keeping the community a safe and happy place to live.

Warm Regards,
(name)
(phone number and email)

If you’re going to invest in Edmonton Real Estate, here’s one less mistake you have to make!

As a property manager in Edmonton, you’re always on the go, and almost never in the office.  A quick and easy way to keep track of your tenants, their lease expiry date, rent amount etc. In your contact list in your cell phone, keep their name and phone number as you normally would and in the Company field, type Tenant, Address of Property, Rent:$XXXX, Expires MM/YY.

Other information that can be stored here are the parking stall numbers, postal code and mailbox number for your income propertys. These are things that aren’t often remembered easily and a condo board, new tenant or even the City may call you for, and its nice to have it at your fingertips instead of having to call them back with the info once you’ve checked the file. Note: when a new tenant comes in, just replace their names with this contact card so you don’t lose all the additional information.  Essentially, you are keeping a contact card for your investment property, not for your tenant.

So simple. Never again have to call a tenant back or stop and boot up your devices when they want to know when their lease expires. Or when a condo board asks for stall numbers…its all at your fingertips.

Don’t re-create the wheel, just copy it.  If something works for another investor, just copy

Just a quick one; our tenant in one property that we’ve had for 6 years all of a sudden starts bouncing cheques when they’ve never done it before, you automatically assume that its just a rough time, and patience should be excercised.  And normally, this is absolutely true, if you treat them with respect, they’ll be loyal to you forever. 

Word of caution though, we’ve had two tenants (ok so not many but worth mentioning) that all of a sudden had a real change in habits and a change in demeanor.  Both usually very easy to deal with, had moments of aggressive behaviour and said things that seemed very out of character.  We normally don’t file at the RTDRS for late rent when its the first time, or very unlike them, but we’ve now learned that when late rent goes along with a change in attitude or behaviour to what you know to be true of them, its a good idea to file right away.  Both these very responsible long term tenants, that would have been considered a 10 to any real estate investor, ended up getting involved in drugs and became very different people. We didn’t file right away and it ended up costing us an extra 6 weeks of vacancy while we ironed things out.  It normally shouldn’t have taken more than 30 days start to finish.  You can let them know that you are filing but that you will revoke the filing once they pay so that it stays non confrontational.  If they don’t pay though, you don’t have to waste anymore time. 

As Investors, Cash is King, keep more of it in your pocket by making business, not emotional decisions.

When you meet your potential tenant, and they have grease stains smeared across their clothes, they hair is windblown with who knows what in it, they’ve got dirt on their face and we don’t even want to think about where their hands have been….do you want this tenant?

Sure, a little exaggerated but you get the point.  First impressions are KEY!  And an investment property’s first impression is no different.  If you don’t impress them, you’ll lose them.  Screen doors should’nt be smeared with greasy fingerprints, wind blown leaves and cobwebs shouldn’t be strewn across the porch (every fall these need to be cleaned in Edmonton), and certainly scuffs and dirt, should be cleaned.  A sophisticated investor will put out a plant pot, with real flowers or some funky twigs to create some interest.  Put a wreath or a homey looking Welcome sign taped to the door with two sided tape (so easy!), light a scented candle to welcome them to the front door. Any or all of these can then be left as your “Welcome” gift for whoever you decide to rent your place to soyou don’t have to cart it all away and most of it can be found at the Dollar Store. WD-40 the hinges so your place doesn’t give the impression that its 50 years older than it is and please, remove any flyers….do any and everything to create an ambiance, right at the front door.  See our post on a property manager’s Essential Tool Kit when self managing investment properties, to make all these adjustments a complete breeze.

Take two minutes (yes that means you’ll have to be there early) to wash the front door and screen. You don’t need to carry around windex and papertowels and clothes etc etc…the Windex disposible wipes will wash both the window and the front door so spend $3.00 and throw a travel pack in your car (or your tool kit) so you always have it with you.  In Edmonton, a windex bottle freezes in your car and the sprayer breaks, so trust us, just pack wipes!

What if you have an ugly entrance, or a very cramped or dark one? A very common layout with recent builders, especially in newer half duplex’s, starter homes and or carriage style townhouse/condo’s here in Edmonton, has been to have the front enterance open to a hallway, which then leads to an open concept kitchen/living room. The hallways are cramped, usually dark with one or no windows….even if you stage the area a bit, its not a “WOW’ you get when you all walk in the door for a showing, its more like an ‘excuse me”, “oops”, ‘sorry’, as you dance around each other so everyone can get in the door and put their shoes out of the way somewhere. Now these properties are otherwise near perfect for an investor…cashflow, rentability, neighborhoods and areas…so, here’s a great tip; bring them in the garage or the patio doors from the deck…….or whatever other door you can that brings them into a clean, bright, open space that they can picture living in. How do you get them in those doors without it being weird? Meet them outside with your shoes and coat on and say “while you have your shoes on, let me show you (the garage, or the back yard) etc…”. Then it will seem a natural way to enter the property.

Lastly, make sure to throw down a mat so they aren’t stepping in dirt or in water (melted snow, this is EDMONTON Investing, 9 months of your year you will have water pooling at front entrances)  from the last showing, or from themselves when they leave or walk by it to get to the next part of the house.

Remember, ”wow” wins.  You want to hear this wow within the first 30 seconds of them walking up.  

So now you’ve got the goods, all you gotta do is go out and make it happen!