Finding Tenants Experience

Hello friends,

I would like to share about one of my failures recently.

So I am very grateful to have parents that are financially literate. They are very much in tune with the ideas of having a rental income. As they are slowly reaching their golden age, they are also delegating their rental income operations to me. 

I was tasked to find a tenant for their flat. A task that seems pretty simple but one that I failed miserably at. It turns out there is a lot more in finding tenants than just posting an ad online.

I started with what I would call the easiest most effective way, which is to post an add online on Mudah.my. With the experienced I had from selling my dad's car, I thought that it was going to be a good idea to reciprocate the storytelling technique to win the heart of my potential tenants. 

Now the train of though that went through my mind was, 

I have a bare unit flat which means the tenant needs to pretty much invest their own pocket money for furniture, kitchen appliances, decors and etc. Which definitely be such a nuisance if I were to be in their shoes. So the best way that I should proceed with this is, I should be honest about my unit's shortcomings but to always point out the good alternatives around it. I figured that if I could show them, through my writings, that I'm honest, maybe I could give them an incentive to go about the positive experience that they will get for staying in a flat where the landlord is kind and approachable (oh how naive I sound). Below is the excerpt that I put on at the description of the ad:

Hello everyone!

It's [omitted] here and I'm listing this good'ol apartment that was recently given a lick of blue paint on the walls. I think the color gives a sense of comfort especially for all you blue lovers! The unit also recently received some tidy-up work so it appears crystal clean now. The exact location of this apartment is below for anyone who wishes to take some extra look at the location:

[omitted]

Tho the unit is a bit bare, meaning that it's not furnished and you pretty much just get the unit itself, but it's safe to say that the location is near many amenities. So you don't really need to worry about having to install many of them in the house. Everything is within 5 minutes drive from the apartment such as laundry, foods, supermarkets and even banks!

You can see the floor plan of the unit in the photo provided in this ad. It's not drawn to scale but at least it gives a good idea on how the apartment looks like from the inside. Pair it with the other photos attached, I think you can get a good picture of it. This unit is located on the 5th floor and unfortunately there's no elevator. It's such a bummer, I know! So, I would only suggest this for you young people out there who's willing to take the challenge of going up those 10 flights of stairs each day! Or for any of you young families that have been skipping on your routine exercises because of work! Consider the stair climbing activity as your exercise. Hehe. 

About the rental price, I'm listing this for RM1000/month. So if you're intereted, that means you'll have to pay upfront of two rentals months (RM2000) plus with half a month of pay for the utilities (RM500). Don't worry, you're advanced 1 month rental will be returned back should the unit is looking as clean as how you've entered it! And your utilities bill will also be returned should there are no outstanding bill at your last month of stay! I prefer tenants that plan to have a long-term stay say, at least 1 year. Because it would be easier for both of us especially when it comes to moving all those furniture around! But I'm always open to any discussion. 

So go ahead and drop me any messages and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. You can just WhatsApp me or email me. Oh, before I forgot, I'm only available on Saturday afternoon if you would like to take a look at the unit. So if you want to schedule a house-viewing, I'm available any Saturday from 2 pm to 5 pm (unless I'm busy but I'll try to make time). I'm not really that uptight about the apartment dealing, especially the pricing. So if you could give me a good bargain, I'll probably accept it. 

I think that's all. Have a good day!

End of excerpt.

After waiting for 62 days, not one gave me a rang to inquire about the rental property. 62 days is the amount of time that my ad will automatically gets pull down from Mudah.my since I'm only using a free tier plan.

Anyway, I've reflected upon this and here's some of the lesson I learned.

1. My rental price was too expensive. After some research, RM1000 a month is absurd. I found out that the most expensive rent for the 4th floor was RM700. Logically, moving up a floor, the rental should always be cheaper especially if it's a walk-up flat (no elevators). Now why didn't I think of the price before putting up the ad? Well, the story goes like this. In the previous years, my parents actually engaged with a nearby flying academy and offered up the unit for the students there. And since the flying academy is a corporate entity, my parents marked up the price to RM850. Which is well above what a 5th floor unit rental should be. Since this was the only info I got at that time, I immediately thought that I should just hike the price up if I wanted to keep up with inflation. But, oh boy was I wrong. It turns out the standard rental for 5th floor unit was about RM650 a month. Which explains why nobody even bothered to inquire about the unit on the ad. After knowing all this, I decreased the rental price to RM600. Before I knew it, I got about 2 calls per day asking about the flat. Also some other interesting thing to note, we are no longer conducting business with the flying academy because there is a newer apartment located nearer to the school. Ofcourse, it would be a wiser decision for them to search for students apartments there.
2. Know your target clients. The thing that I overlooked the most was who my potential tenant was. I've been immersing myself with figuring out the cheapest most easiest way for advertising the house to the point that I forgot who would even rent such a place. The easiest way, I thought, would be to just do it all online and hoping that the ad would find someone who would reach out to me. But the thing is, the unit is a flat. Almost nobody would search on the internet for a flat. But people who passes by that unit might be interested to know more if they saw a "For Rent" sign. I learned that I have to be aware that there are still people that values seeing the house for themselves. Some even take some time off just to drive around, looking for a "For Rent" sign while passing through the neighborhood. So that's what we eventually did. My parents bought a "For Rent" sign and we hung it on the flat's window. Before we know it, calls are getting in. 
3. Be prepared for the bad clients you interact with. Filter them and don't waste your time on lowballers. If you're unlucky, you'll find yourself having to deal with 2 types of clients that are not worth your time. The first are the lowballers and the second are the ones who tells their sad life story to get your empathy. These are the 2 types to just shrug off if you find yourself dealing with them. I've received countless calls about them making absurd lowball offers and life tragedy stories. To speak about it once or twice is alright but to always bring it up in every conversation even though you've made your decisions clear, it means that they probably don't have enough income for the rent to begin with.
4. Description might be too long or doesn't provide enough emotional punch. I realized that there are 2 camps of people in the description section. The first are the ones who prefer specs and details of the house and the second is the ones who loves beautiful descriptions of the house. Which camp to use on the description totally depends on the type of rental unit being offered. After learning it through the hard way, I know now that the obvious choice to write on the description should be all specs and points about the house. It is a flat. Nobody is looking at is as if it's a mansion or a 5 star hotel.

After all of this, the main conclusion that I could draw from this experience is that you just have to be yourself. Don't try too hard to be nice and kind. If you just be who you really are, that is as 'honest' as you can be. Just make sure to be thoughtful during interactions. Treat your clients with respect and not as your superior. I believe that if you just be yourself and treat others as how you wanted to be treated, that trait is enough to captivate people. Only then you can make real connections and meaningful relationships.

That's all the writing for today. Thank you friends.