How do smaller owners handle the repeat tenant texts?
Ithaca New York · Member since 2026 · 1 post · 1 vote
How do smaller owners handle the repeat tenant texts?
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Drew SygitBusiness Member
Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votesQuote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
Depends on the situation & history of that specific tenant.
You want to be polite and helpful to increase your chances of good tenants renewing and bad tenant moving on!
Understand that most tenants do NOT keep their leases handy and actually LOSE them!
- One of the benefits of using PMC software is a tenant portal where tenants can see & access a lot of lease info.
At a bare minimum, you may want to take a few pics of their lease and send those to them in response to their inquiries, stating "please see this page of your lease."
For troublesome tenants you do NOT want to renew, you can be a bit less helpful, but still be polite, and send them a PDF attachment of their entire lease and tell them they "can find their answer in the attached lease."
- Just have to be careful not to offend them so they stop paying, move out early or worse.
Logical Property Management4.9460 Reviews
16 Replies
- Honolulu, HI · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes2mo
That's what happens when you don't actually review the rental agreement and terms with all of the signers. Of course, allowing them to text or call your personal cell is a major part of the problem. Set up allowable communication methods at the outset...email, "business" phone number with voicemail, and an "after hours" process for emergencies only. With regard to the deposit return, that should have been covered as a reminder when notice was given/received and/or at the move out inspection.
Just a guess, but I have doubts they were properly screened to begin with if they are asking such basic questions.
- 2moMike FisherBusiness MemberNew Lenox, IL · Member since 2024 · 116 posts · 63 votes
This is an everyone problem, not a you problem, and I would push back gently on the idea that it means the tenants were screened badly. Even great tenants take the path of least resistance, and a text to you is easier than opening a lease PDF. The fix is to make the answer easier to find than the text is to send. I have invested in and managed Chicago-area rentals since 1991, so this is a daily thing for me too.
What actually cut the repeat texts down for us:
1. A one-page move-in sheet, handed over at key exchange, that answers the top ten questions before they are asked. Rent due date and how to pay, parking, trash and recycling day, how to submit a maintenance request, what counts as an emergency versus normal, and who to contact. Most of the "already in the lease" questions are really "I do not want to read twelve pages to find one line," so give them the one line up front.
2. Separate the channel from your personal cell. A business number or Google Voice, plus a portal or simple form for maintenance so those requests are documented and not living in your text thread. You will not get tenants to fully stop texting, so the move is to funnel it: a friendly auto-reply or a saved canned response that points them back to the portal trains the habit over a lease term.
3. Handle the predictable ones proactively. The deposit-return question, for example, gets answered before they ask if you mention the timeline and process at the move-out walkthrough and in writing when notice is given. Same with lease renewal season. Answer it on your calendar instead of their text.
One honest caveat: do not optimize this to zero. A tenant who texts you the small stuff is also the tenant who texts you early about the slow drip under the sink before it becomes a ceiling. The goal is to filter noise from signal, not to train people to stop talking to you. A portal that documents the real issues is worth more than a quiet tenant.
I run MF CashFlow Property Management (M Property Group LLC) out of New Lenox, IL, so happy to compare notes on what is working.
M Property Group LLC | MF Cashflow Property Management4.9102 Reviews - 2moDrew SygitBusiness MemberProperty Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
Quote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
Depends on the situation & history of that specific tenant.
You want to be polite and helpful to increase your chances of good tenants renewing and bad tenant moving on!
Understand that most tenants do NOT keep their leases handy and actually LOSE them!
- One of the benefits of using PMC software is a tenant portal where tenants can see & access a lot of lease info.At a bare minimum, you may want to take a few pics of their lease and send those to them in response to their inquiries, stating "please see this page of your lease."
For troublesome tenants you do NOT want to renew, you can be a bit less helpful, but still be polite, and send them a PDF attachment of their entire lease and tell them they "can find their answer in the attached lease."
- Just have to be careful not to offend them so they stop paying, move out early or worse.Logical Property Management4.9460 Reviews - Real Estate Broker · Chicago, IL · Member since 2014 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes2mo
Quote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
Most of our portfolio is managed by 3rd parties (property management). And our tenants did not and do not have our personal phone numbers. When we did manage properties ourselves we tried a lot of different processes & tools. Our goal was and is not to create another job. We would provide phone numbers to 3rd party services or VAs that could answer basic questions. For the questions they could not answer they would pass it on to us and the tenant would receive a response later. We established our own backoffice system with specific phone numbers that tenants could call or text. The responses came from VAs not us.
If we were managing our own properties we would use AI and link it to tools like Buildium to handle resident inquiries or build a website with chatbots that tenants had access to and let the chatbot handle basic inquiries. The tech is there to free up your time. i'd explore using it.
- Real Estate Agent · Memphis · Member since 2026 · 585 posts · 346 votes2mo
I use a mix. I don't think you're ever going to eliminate the texts completely, but I try to make sure I'm not answering the same question from scratch every time.
My approach is usually:
- Put the common answers somewhere tenants can easily access them
- Use the portal for anything that needs a record, especially maintenance and payments
- Answer genuinely quick questions when it makes sense
- Redirect repeat questions back to the portal/lease so tenants learn where to find the information
The biggest thing for me is consistency. If I let maintenance come through text one day, email the next and the portal another time, I've basically trained tenants to contact me however they want. I'd rather establish those channels at move-in and keep reinforcing them.
- Real Estate Broker · Northeast PA · Member since 2017 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes2mo
In this age of AI, it might help you to investigate using an AI Agent to handle this type of text.
The Agent can also distinguish between common questions and a maintenance issue or emergency.
Contact me if you need some direction with this great tool.
- 2moJimmy LieuBusiness MemberReal Estate Agent · Columbus, OH · Member since 2019 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votesI think this is pretty much an everyone problem. I still get questions from tenants where the answer is clearly spelled out in the lease. What’s helped me is having one main communication channel and making the common information really easy to find. I’ll answer legitimate questions, but I also try to train tenants to use the portal by responding with something like, “Yep, you can find that under your lease/documents in the portal.” After a while, most tenants learn where to look instead of texting every time. For maintenance, I’m more strict and ask that requests go through the portal so there’s a written record and nothing gets lost in texts. You probably won’t eliminate repetitive questions completely, but having a consistent system makes managing multiple rentals a lot less time-consuming.
Quote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
Jimmy Lieu, Red 1 Realty4.9120 Reviews - Technology · Member since 2026 · 83 posts · 27 votes2mo
Quote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
It's definitely not just you this is one of the most common complaints I hear from landlords managing their own properties.
The pattern is always the same. Tenants have the lease. They just don't read it. Answering the same five questions every month is death by a thousand cuts.
What actually works is having an automated system that responds to tenant texts instantly with the right answer pulled from their specific lease terms. Rent due date, parking details, deposit timeline all answered in seconds without you touching your phone.
Some landlords I've spoken with cut their tenant response time from hours to seconds and reclaimed entire evenings just by automating the repetitive communication layer.
Happy to share more detail on how that works if anyone's curious.
- Investor · Get yourself trained before doing something inadvisable. · Member since 2024 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes2moThe solution is to use the auto reply your phone has. At the very least you can preprogram responses that cover the basics. Since it's cheaper to keep a tenant happy than to find a new tenant, seems to me the easy solution is pre made premade responses.
Quote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
If you don't want to be responding to obvious questions just reference the item number in the agreement. The cathch with that is they would have had to held onto the agreement :-) Quote from @Account Closed:
Curious how other landlords here handle something. I'd guess 90% of the texts I get from tenants are the same handful of questions. When's rent due, is parking included, when do I get my deposit back, stuff that's already in the lease, it's just easier for them to text me than dig it out themselves.
Do you personally answer everything as it comes in? Use a PM software's tenant portal, and if so, do tenants actually use it or do they still text you directly? Just accept it as part of the job?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is a me problem or an everyone problem. Would love to hear how you all handle it
1. Set up a separate number just for real estate.
2. Set up a separate address just for your business.
3. When you are at the property, state you are just maintenance.
4. Set up a seperate e-mail/website seperate from your personal.
That's about it.
- 2moBruce WoodruffPro MemberContractor/Investor/Consultant · San Diego / Phoenix · Member since 2021 · 12k+ posts · 15k+ votes
My question would be - why does the tenant have your number for texting? Maybe they got your number somehow during the transaction, but I would make it clear that it is not to be used for this purpose...
- Investor · Get yourself trained before doing something inadvisable. · Member since 2024 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes2moWhen you don't have a property manager, you have to sometimes interact with your tenant. I don't use real estate agents so I give my lease option buyers my phone number. I'm a little unusual in that I've taken over the loan of the person I bought from and I want to know as quickly as possible if there is going to be some kind of problem so I can address it.
Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:
- Investor · Get yourself trained before doing something inadvisable. · Member since 2024 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes2mo
Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:
When you don't have a property manager, you have to sometimes interact with your tenant. I don't use real estate agents so I give my lease option buyers my phone number. I'm a little unusual in that I've taken over the loan of the person I bought from and I want to know as quickly as possible if there is going to be some kind of problem so I can address it. I call it BOMSTLO -B(uy) O(ff) M(arket) S(ubject) To (sell) L(ease) O(ption) :-) Cute, eh.
- 2moJohn MorganPro MemberRental Property Investor · Grand Prairie, TX · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
I have a handful of tenants like that. I just take my time answering them. But I'll respond over text. Takes me two seconds. Not a big deal. The ones that are a real pain to deal with get extra rent increases every year. lol
- 1moAdam BartomeoBusiness MemberReal Estate Broker · Cape Coral, FL · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
Our leases are fairly short in comparison to others that we have seen. This allows the tenant to navigate it fairly easily. With hundreds of tenants, we do not find them consistently asking us leasing questions. You may want to consider making a One Pager with FAQ's
Bartomeo Property Management4.7150 Reviews
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