The Covid-19 crisis is hitting the US pretty hard as of this writing. As of now, no one really knows when or how the other side of this thing will be reached. Despite this uncertainty, the time for us landlords to communicate with our tenants is now. Now, before the end of the month. Now, before the rent is due. Now,before issues arise.
The long term economic effects of this virus are going to be wide ranging. Some effects are already being felt now. People are losing hours and income while others have been laid off. It will take some time for the economy to adjust and rebound (Don’t worry, it will). Until it does however, some of our tenants will likely face some difficult choices. When they do, the last thing you as the landlord want is for them to hide or stick their heads in the sand. Instead you want them to communicate with you. This is why you must open those channels of communication now rather than waiting on your tenants to do so. Because when your tenants finally do contact you, they may have already dug themselves into too deep of a hole.
Your communication efforts do not have to be anything too detailed or long winded. A simple e-mail of a couple paragraphs will do. We recently sent a quick e-mail out to all of our tenants. In it, we outlined just a few main points.
- We acknowledged the difficulty of the current situation.
- We asked our tenants to communicate with us ASAP if they run into any Covid-19 related issues.
- We stated that by communicating with us, we would try to work with them in the near future.
- We noted that non-essential repairs would likely be delayed but asked them to continue to report major repair issues through our property management software tenant portal.
- Finally, we asked them to remember that we are a small business with bills and expenses and are not immune from the effects of this crisis but will do our best to get through it.
You might be asking what does “work with them” mean? Honestly, at this point we are not sure. We figure that will have to be examined on a case by case basis as issues arise. We did however note in our e-mail that any working agreement will be in writing and will become a part of the lease. There will be no verbal side deals.
Overall the response from our tenants has been positive. Most appreciate the effort. Hopefully, by opening up the lines of communication during this crisis we can head off others later on down the road.
Landlords, do not wait any longer. Communicate with your tenants today!
Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors. Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.
