When the real estate market is competitive, investors must be careful about what they pay for a property. Bidding wars and high costs can cause what would have been a good investment opportunity to turn into a real dud. That said, protecting your cash flow depends on far more than what you pay at closing. It’s more than the rental rates you set. No – protecting and maximizing passive income has far more to do with your strategic choices and due diligence.

Real estate investors all know that resident retention is essential. Property vacancies are costly not only for the lack of rental income but also for the costs associated with filling that vacancy. Reducing turnover is often a matter you can control and adjust as you go. Sometimes, however, investors hurt their chances from the start.

The customer experience is often overlooked in business simply because it's difficult to quantify. With that said, it’s no less a vital part to your success as a real estate investor. Rental vacancies are extremely costly and the way you maximize your property’s income-earning potential is by minimizing turnover as much as possible.

While reducing rental property turnover is key to maximizing your cash flow, it’s also the inevitable reality of owning a rental. While you can’t avoid turnover from time-to-time, you can take proactive steps to avoid lengthy vacancies and delays. When you do, you’ll bounce back better than ever.

Residents are the bread and butter of real estate investment. Because they are the source of our cash flow, it’s critical that we place value in tenant retention. In a market where tenants are abundant, it may be tempting to think that your tenants are dispensable and replaceable: but don’t be fooled.

Memphis Invest has built its' reputation among real estate investors with incredible customer service.  But that customer service reaches far beyond just the investor.  Over the years, we have learned and developed our own way of treating tenants and built an equally good reputation within the rental and property management communities.

Premier Property Management of Memphis and PPMG of Texas are each routinely out-performing local data with shorter vacancy periods, longer occupancy periods, higher rental rates and fewer delinquencies and eventual evictions.  Our tenants have become a cornerstone of our companies' success.  Treating them firmly yet fairly has become the mantra of our team.

But a good tenant is worth keeping, and turnover of any kind is costly!

Tenant turnover. For the real estate investor, that phrase alone can strike fear into your heart. Maybe not a lot, but at least some! No one enjoys going through the turnover phase. Unless the tenant was a real headache, having a vacancy isn’t ideal!

Before getting to the obvious points of the article about vacancies being bad and how to avoid them, I want to give a tremendous shout-out to our incredible property management teams in all three cities.

We learned in our leadership meetings this week that we are managing north of 3,500 properties and that we have fewer than 100 vacancies combined in all three cities!

That alone is an astounding statistic, but even more incredible is that there are only five properties...5 properties...that have been vacant for longer than 30 days.  Each was a move-out and all five have applications working on them.

Premier property management in Memphis and PPMG of Texas have incredible team members and fantastic leadership and they are absolutely destroying the myth that there is "good time" to rent houses.  If you pay attention to details during renovations and train your team to treat tenants firmly, yet with respect, then renting properties at the top of the rent range and for 2-year terms or longer, is not difficult!  

Here are some lessons we have learned!