Treat Tenants As Treasured Customers Not As Problems
One of the best things you can do is to hire customer-service oriented
and knowledgeable property managers, who have a pleasant attitude.
Many landlords treat tenants like they are the enemy. If you look for
ways to delight your tenants and provide courteous, fast, service,
you will have a great advantage over your competition. One method
Trump employs in his office buildings is access to a web site called “Workspeed.” If a tenant has a complaint of any kind, such as an electrical
malfunction, he logs onto Workspeed and furnishes details of
the nature and location of the problem. This information is immediately
sent by Workspeed to the person responsible for electrical maintenance.
That person logs in the time the complaint was received, who
will respond, and when it will be correctedAll of this information also
goes to the building office enabling it to monitor the problem and the
efficiency of the repair crew. This procedure bypasses busy telephones
in the building office, prevents a repair person from saying I never got
the complaint, and eliminates a claim by an irate tenant saying, “I’ve
called five times and haven’t gotten any response.”
The following anecdote portrays the kind of customer service
that real estate investors can learn from. Just recently, I was about to
enter a particular non-Trump casino, and there was a security guard
sitting at the podium perhaps eight feet from the entry doors, which
had to be opened manually. She saw me coming, got up from her
chair, greeted me with a friendly smile and a good morning sir, and
walked over to the entryway to open the door for me. When I entered
the casino, it looked very clean and well-maintained. The result
was that it made me feel like someone special.
Now whether she
did this courteous act on her own, or she was trained in customer
service I don’t know. What I do know is that three months earlier
when I entered the same casino precisely at the same entryway, the
security guard sitting at the same podium never even looked up and
acknowledged me. The little extra effort by a courteous security
guard made a very positive impression on me. Now if you owned this
property, wouldn’t you want all your employees to make this kind of
impression on customers?
If there are several casinos all bunched together in the same
spot, and each one essentially offers the same types of gambling
games, most players will prefer the casino that makes its customers
feel special..
One easy solution to property management is for you, the owner,
to live in one of the units. That way you can ensure that the building
and grounds are kept clean and in impeccable condition. If
you’re mechanically inclined, you can promptly repair and maintain
most things that need fixing.
In the...
more »
Throughout this book, I’ve talked about the ways Trump gets premium
prices for his properties by offering impressive luxuries people aren’t used to seeing. He will only use the finest marble, and each
piece has to match. He will only use mirrored steel and it has to be
perfect. It’s one thing...
more »
A classic example of timing a sale was demonstrated by Leonard Kandell
who made his fortune by constructing and leasing residential
apartment buildings in New York City. Traditionally, he was a longterm
holder. However, when the idea of converting apartment buildings
into cooperative apartments beca...
more »
The following are examples of several strategies that successful realty
investors utilize. Some of the strategies are short term and some
are long term.This strategy is long-term in nature, because you’re investing in a
property that you intend to hold, and then either develop it some
time in the...
more »
Renting houses or apartments has always been a great way for realty
investors to show a good return on their investment. However, when
it comes to renting houses to tenants, there’s another potential
method one can use to earn an even greater return. You can do it by
giving a tenant an option to b...
more »
