How do you organize your end of lease dates?

Question

Yes I'm posting a lot today.

All of the leases I prepare end on 4/30. SO 90% of my tenants expire on the same day. Makes it easy for me to do walk throughs prior to a new lease. But the inherited tenants and the folks that move in in the summer time throw a wrench in the 4/30 system.

What are you using to keep your lease end dates organized?

Thanks!

Luke Carl · Answer

Just had a call with buildium moving up to a specialist in an hour. Sounds like it’s a winner

Ryan Swan · Answer

@Lucas Carl buildium does everything you want/need it to do. Lease start/end tracking, rent tracking, automatic payment reminders and late fees, and a lease end move out process that simplifies a lot of the work related to security deposits and charges.

Ryan Daigle · Answer

@Lucas Carl ah yes - you're hitting that magical point in running a business where you're too swamped to invest in improving the processes, yet can't grow any further until you do 😱

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet when you're at this point. Hiring a VA can be your long term goal, but even getting them up and running will take some of your time and effort.

I would create a list of the menial tasks that take up the majority if your time (so lowest value, highest cost), and make time each week to automate it away or train somebody else to do it for you. Software can definitely help, but it needs to be setup too.

Have to make the time to invest in the business to unblock your next level of growth. But that means you're having success, so congratulations!

Ryan Daigle · Answer

Hi @Lucas Carl. It's rare to see a landlord *want* to have all their leases end on the same day. I understand the simplicity benefit, but it also exposes you to risk having to re-lease all units at the same time of year. The conventional approach is to try and sprinkle your lease renewals throughout the year. However, that wasn't your question...

Regarding organizing lease end dates - with that many units I would hope you're using some sort of management software like Buildium? If not, even a simple spreadsheet could suffice. Or even a simple task management systems like Asana could help organize these dates?

Hope that helps!

Kelly N. · Answer

Most of our leases end in the summer since we rent in a college town, and folks want to be in before fall classes start.  I use Quickbooks for our accounting, and have the lease end date noted in every tenant's info there so it shows up on their invoices too.  I am switching over to Cozy.co right now, and lease end dates are part of their program as well, and like @Evan Polaski said above, I also keep the dates in my calendar on my phone.

We review all the properties over the winter to see what we are making per door, and what our competitors are charging for comparable units so we know what we need to do with rents.  I then have a list in Excel of units, current end dates and rent, what the rent will be for this tenant if they stay, what rent we would charge for a new tenant moving in, when the apartment could be moved into (2 days after the lease end date typically, longer if upgrades are planned) and how much we will spend upgrading the apartment if the current tenants move out.  Then I contact each tenant about the upcoming end of their lease, let them know what rent will be for the new term, and see if they want to renew.  If so, we arrange to sign a lease by a certain date (3/31 typically) and start marketing apartments that will be available.

Luke Carl · Answer

Looks like it’s time for software. Problem is.... who’s going to use it? I’m too busy buying rehabbing and finding tenants to deal with numbers or software.

Does it have a way to tell me if tenants have paid? That’s other part of my system that has a flaw.

I do have a full time VA I suppose I could have her learn how to use it?

Evan Polaski · Answer

@Lucas Carl 26 units is not a terribly large amount, although more than I have.  When I sign or renew a lease, I just add two calendar events to my google calendar.  One on lease end day, but more importantly one 90 days ahead to get the conversation going on renewal or release.  Then I can forget about it until my phone pops up with a reminder to reach out.

How do you organize your end of lease dates?

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