COVID-19 has caused a lot of unemployment last year. Tenants struggled to pay rent and rental vacancies increased sharply in some markets because laid off tenants moved out. If you’re a landlord experiencing vacancies in your property, this is the article that will help you fill in those vacancies for business recovery.

1. Offer a long-term lease

Offering long-term leases such as the standard 12-month lease or more increases the chances of keeping your property occupied for a long time. However, there are also disadvantages to it like letting in bad tenants and profit losses because you cannot increase the rent unless the lease is over.

2. List vacancies when people are looking

It’s not wise to advertise your property during the fall and winter seasons. People are still getting cozy in their homes during these cold months. Spring and summer months are the best for listing vacancies because potential tenants are out searching for homes while being ready to move.

3. Find out your tenants’ intentions early

For your existing tenants, ask them if they have plans of moving out or if they intend to stay as their lease nears its end. This is to let you post your vacancies in advance, find a new tenant to occupy the soon-to-be-vacated unit, and give that upcoming tenant a proper reservation.

4. Update housing features

Healthy living and working conditions are the new norm this 2021 due to the pandemic that struck last year. For single-family rental properties, high-quality ventilation, good working space, stable internet connection, and a communal recreation area will be the top features of a profitable rental property due to stay-at-home regulations and online learning.

5. Make your property smarter and more sustainable

Sustainability is a rising trend in modern-day housing and will soon be the norm in the future. Change your rental home into a green home by changing the interior lights into energy-saving LED-bulbs.

Having automation panels, assistant speakers, mobile-controlled appliances, and house-wide WiFi will be some of the questions that potential tenants will ask this 2021. Read more on this article on how to make your home a smart home.

6. Offer competitive terms

As a landlord, you may not want to lower your rental rates. But if your property is located in a down market neighborhood, you might want to make compromises to fill in vacancies. If you cannot make this kind of compromise, you can offer a shorter lease term, free rent for the first month, or no fee for breaking the lease early to entice potential tenants into signing a contract with you.

7. Include virtual tours in your listings

Most people aren’t confident in going out of their homes yet to view a property for rent. If you do manage to list the vacancy of your property for rent online, pictures of the exterior and interior won’t be enough.

A lot of tenants these days will ask for a virtual tour of the house, the surrounding neighborhood, and the local amenities. It’s best to have a cloud file of your rental’s virtual tour and provide a link to the file for interested tenants.

8. Help your current tenants

Another way to keep your rental occupied is to work with your tenants by offering the option to skip paying rents for at least a month or two especially if they were laid off during the pandemic. If you cannot do that, you can reduce the rent for a few months until they recover financially.

Even though you have vacancies in your rental properties today, you need not worry about it any longer because the economy is already recovering. Start on making minor upgrades to your property for rent. Prepare your strategies for advertising because when spring comes, there will be a massive influx of renters and you should be ready to showcase your rental home.