Rental Property Investor · Tampa, FL · Member since 2013 · 35 posts · 7 votes
Hi everybody, I want to hear what you would do in my situation.
I have a great tenant who pays on time every time and never has complaints or issues with rules or anything, for that matter. She has been with me for 2 years, each on a 1 year lease term. It is a 1br 1ba 800sft apt. It's time for her renewal and she wants to be in a 6 month lease term because she is not sure what her plan is for the end of next year.
I really want to stick with 1 year terms but I really like her as a tenant and how easy she makes things. I have thought about allowing it this once but going back to 1 year leases as I dont want this to become the normal.
Let me know what you guys would do. I really appreciate all the feedback. Let me know if you have any questions as well.
ditto on the above... If you want to keep the good tenant I would do six months. Plus she may even renew the six months over and over and over....I have tenants who have been "planning" to buy a house or even move for years.... This sounds more about her wanting to have options and flexibility than move out per se... Also, if other folks mostly do one year leases in your area, she is even more likely to stay longer if you have the more flexible terms...
Would you rather have a vacancy now or a vacancy in 6 months? In my market I'll take a vacancy in the April-August window any day instead of a vacancy in any other months. Those summer months are super easy for finding new tenants. Now, not so much.
ditto on the above... If you want to keep the good tenant I would do six months. Plus she may even renew the six months over and over and over....I have tenants who have been "planning" to buy a house or even move for years.... This sounds more about her wanting to have options and flexibility than move out per se... Also, if other folks mostly do one year leases in your area, she is even more likely to stay longer if you have the more flexible terms...
Good tenants are worth their weight in gold. I had a similar issue with tenants looking to buy something and not wanting to commit to a whole year. They ended up renewing for 6 months 3 times before they found a home.
I just came across the same scenario with a good tenant paying market rent. I decided to re-new them for another 6 months. It keeps the unit cash flowing for at least another 6 months with no turnover or vacancy. Will revisit 6 months from now.
Good question. We try our best to follow the golden rule with how we treat our tenants. As above stated how would you want your landlord to respond if it were you planning on home ownership.
If you force the 1 year lease and she decides to leave in 6 months anyway, what are you going to do? When people want/need to move, they will move......and despite the warm fuzzy feeling of a lease, you really don't have nearly the leverage you think you do as a landlord. Its purely a psychological issue......tenants think they are trapped because they have a lease....if people want to break it and leave, they will and its hard to enforce the $$ for the rent they didn't pay for the remaining lease
She s a good tenant and my advice would be to go with the 6 months and you will likely see that she stays longer.....be a jerk and she will start looking even harder for a new place
What I like to do with my tenants is I make mandatory 12 month leases, but I offer a 60 day penalty free release if they give me proper notice. What I've seen is that people rarely invoke it and when they do, they give me plenty of time to rerent the unit. Almost always they complete the lease term. This gives you the lease you want but also is a form of a step down sale to help get your tenant past the action threshold.
Also, rerenting a unit is about a million times easier when the unit is fully furnished and clean because the tenant knows they're at your discretion to release them.
If you absolutely love your tenant, I would probably just say "yes" but maybe increase the rent a bit. You are offering to meet her demands so she can offer to compensate a bit with a higher rent. She is essentially paying for flexibility. I would say this is totally fine in a market/location where there is enough rental demand.
I only do M2M agreements. I have several residents on M2M for 5+ years. One-year leases only lock in the owner. Residents will move when they need to move. Also, M2M allows me to deal with problems immediately.