Fill Your Vacancies

Vacancy rates have gone up in many communities across the province, and landlords have had to deal with this in interesting ways. The easiest way to fill your empty units - with little effort - is to have your existing tenants refer their friends and colleagues. If you have a great building in a fantastic location, your vacancy should rent itself and your tenants should want to refer people they know.

But no matter how amazing your building is, in this market a little incentive can certainly help. Some landlords have incentive referral programs where the person who makes the referral receives something small like a gift card to a nearby coffee shop. Most buildings that have this kind of program have simple rules about what qualifies as a referral; for example, the referred applicant has to actually be accepted and move into the building.

A referral incentive program is not just a great way to fill your vacancies; it is a way to make your apartment building a community that people want to live in and stay in - further reducing your vacancies. Remember to make it fun!

 -- Carly Ludwar and Hunter Boucher

Lower Rent?

It’s not something you hear about in the news, but Landlords have hearts too! With the current economic downturn, people are facing a scary world that threatens our basic needs. People are forced to choose between shelter and food or paying the gas bill, and landlords are not immune to this either. Most have normal day jobs that are just as fragile as everyone else's, but some are in a position to help where they can. Tenants are asking for rent reductions, generally for a couple of months while they get back on their feet. It is not expected that every landlord should reduce their rents, but there are some who can and will. The question is not whether or not you should do this; it's up to each individual landlord. This is something that only you can decide, but how to properly help these people without permanently affecting your income is something to be cautious of.

Should you find that you are willing and able to do what you can to help, be sure to adhere to these rules. In a perfect world, you could just tell your tenant that they can pay $100 less for three months, shake hands, and in three months you would have your standard rent again, but unfortunately this isn’t the case. Its not a perfect world; it’s a paper world that has correct procedures and regulations, but its surprisingly easy and quick to help out your tenants. The easiest method is to offer a "rent rebate." In this case, the tenant pays you the whole amount of their rent, and you pay them back the amount you choose. By using this method the rent paid is still the original amount, thus eliminating you being stuck with low rent in the future.

-- Staff and AdviserToTheAdvisers