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Hey friend,
What I am about to say will probably offend some people and if you are one of them I am sorry.
However it is unfortunately true so here it is:
The reason tenants complain so much about security deposits is the landlord’s fault.
Yep, that is an unpopular concept among investors but hear me out.
I recently did a survey among thousands of tenants and investors and found some very interesting data.
Nearly 60% of tenants are concerned about getting their deposit back and feel the landlord will try to take unfair deductions.
But after digging in a bit further it turned out that only 19% have actually had unfair deductions in the past (per them).
Wild that so many complain but only a small amount actually experienced it!
We have all had to deal with tenant complaints and arguments on the deductions but why are they actually complaining so much?
As investors we are not “out to get” the tenants as they may think. Sure we are in it for a profit but not to put them on the streets…
So why all the noise?
I can tell you I found the reason and it is quite a shocker, even for me:
By survey, 59% of leases had no inspection done or no photos taken.
Yep, that’s right. The majority of leases didn’t even have photos prior to the move in.
So how do we expect to have any sort of agreement on deductions when it is based on what the tenant remembers it to be? Naturally there is going to be a difference of opinion.
Of course the logical answer is that tenants should take photos for themselves but do we really expect them to do that? Not likely. And it is actually our property so it is in our interest to property document it.
This was the problem I was running into and I created a simple solution for it which I wanted to share with others.
I created it with this exact problem in mind and to provide investors with a cost effective way to do inspections.
After a ton of demand I later added a full suite of features so they can manage their properties start to finish for free (yeah, crazy I know…).
So if you want to learn more about it you can click the link below. It is a free account and no obligations so check it out.
>>> Learn more about Lease Protector
And if you are already using another property management software then I have a solution for that as well.
I took the inspection feature and made it into a separate app that is super simple that you can use to do inspections. Not free but very cost effective and will save untold misery…. (free account creation so you can look around).
I am sharing these as I found them helpful with my rentals and I think you will too!
Enjoy!
Sean Tanner
RE Investor & CEO of Lease Protector
