Highest Ever Rents Banked in 2014
A stunning $441 Billion was banked in rents in the U.S. in 2014, according to our friends at the KCM Blog. This is a $20 Billion increase over the year before.
Zillow’s Chief Economist predicts that 2015 will be more of the same.
Read the whole story at the KCM Blog.
Photo credit: mcfcrandall via photopin cc
“No Vacancies” A Landlord’s Favorite Words
One thing you can count on in business (and in life) is change…so I thought I better show off real quick before something changes.
To start off this new year, we have 87 apartments with No Vacancies!!
I can’t even remember the last time that happened.
We do have one vacant house…but houses are a different business in our world so I can brag about the apartments separately. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
We had huge turnover last summer. We decided it was a perfect time to sell a few houses, so we asked a few long term month-to-month tenants to leave for that purpose. Then suddenly we had some other long term tenants give us notices. Gulp.
At one point last summer we had 8 vacant houses. Eight.
Plus normal spring and summer apartment turnover.
So I was one stressed out lady when the cash/bills graphs got crossed (bills up, cash down). Filling vacancies is always my absolute top priority, so I had little time to blog. I’ll try to get in a little pontificating now.
Josh and I would like to add a new apartment complex this year, so I probably won’t be basking in the No Vacancies glow for long 🙂
More Good News for Landlords
This great new info-graphic from our friends at The KCM Blog shows visually that landlords are getting special again.
100% of markets tracked saw an increase in rents this quarter.
As landlords, we go through periods where we don’t feel very special (the recent recessionary years come to mind).
And then we have periods when we feel very special…when rents are rising and units fill fast (and banks lend us money)!
I signed leases with highest-ever rents on 6 different properties in the past month – both homes and apartments.
There were feeding-frenzies with multiple applicants on each of those properties. The feeding-frenzies repeated even though I made pretty big rent increases on all the homes and apartments that turned over.
Several times I had to take the ads down within 24-48 hours of posting to get the phone to quit ringing.
I figured the rents must be too low.
Each time the feeding-frenzie happened, I re-researched the market and raised the rents again.
This is a great problem 🙂
Here Comes Spring Turnover!
Can you feel it? Spring is appearing and change is in the air. Our landscape contractor has already begun to clean up and beautify each of our properties. We’ve had a bunch of residents respond happily and thank us.
The last two years were “lean” so we skipped adding new black soil to the planter beds and raked them out instead. We also planted fewer new flowers and perennials. But this year we’ve budgeted for a little more beautification because we intend to compete like crazy for the great tenants that will be looking for a fresh new apartment.
Spring and summer are a residential landlord’s biggest turnover months, so get ahead of the curve with your marketing plans, and don’t forget to also do everything possible to keep the great tenants you already have!
Most of the turnover will be done by the end of July, so work smart to have every vacancy filled by then. August vacancies will be much more difficult to rent because of the reduced demand, and by September it will be super difficult to attract the few tenants that will be moving in the fall and winter months.
Now is the time to prepare to compete for the great tenants that will be in the market for a fresh new apartment in the next few months!