What the Kitchen Faucet Taught Me About How to Keep Great Tenants

What the kitchen faucet taught me about how to keep great tenants

By John Triplett, NationalREIA

That late-night maintenance call

I got a call last night from Jake – We will call him Jake for purposes of this blog – who handles the majority of the maintenance on my rental properties. My property manager usually just asks Jake to call me when a tenant reports a problem that involves a repair.

I often cringe when Jake calls because I know there is always a cost involved. So the less I hear from Jake, generally the better.

But not always.

Sometimes a call from Jake is an opportunity for me to become a better landlord and treat the tenants more like the customers I want them to be.

So in this case it seems the faucet in the kitchen sink has gone out and needs to be replaced.

Now I don’t know about your house, but at our house the faucet in the kitchen sink is one of the things I touch multiple times per day. It’s a regular, high-use item and darned annoying when it’s not working right.

I imagine the tenants feel the same way. Put yourself in the tenants’ shoes occasionally.

Rather than running to the store just to get a cheap kitchen faucet to replace the cheap one the last owner put in there, Jake asked me a question.

What kind of faucet do the tenants want?

Read the rest here.