How to Find the Perfect Tenant

Table of Contents

Finding the perfect tenant for your investment property can take a lot of hard work. If all goes well, the time and effort you put in to the search will result in that special unicorn who diligently pays rent, maintains the property and never parties. However, if you are relying on your own judgement, the risk of choosing a renter who damages the property, disturbs the neighbors and is late on rent will always be there. Let’s take a closer look at how to find the perfect tenant, and why hiring a property management company, like Nomadic Real Estate, could help save you time, effort, and headache.

Multiple Channel Marketing

To properly market your rental unit to your target audience, be prepared to spend plenty of time creating eye catching ads, posting them to relevant channels and promptly responding to inquiries. Nomadic Real Estate not only has a professional in house photographer and ad writer, but our leasing team uses all of the data and resources at their fingertips to aggressively market our clients’ properties.

The wording can also make or break your ad from reaching the right tenants. If you want responsible and reliable tenants, be sure to communicate like one. Make sure you are formal, friendly, and credible in the promotional material you post in order to attract the perfect tenants. 

Property Showings

The most time-consuming aspect of finding the perfect tenant is showing your property. Potential tenants usually prefer to view living spaces during lunch,  after working hours, or on weekends. Along with time, a sense of flexibility is always required as cancellations and rescheduling happen frequently!

How to Find the Perfect Tenant 1

Tenant Credit and Background Checks

Finding the perfect tenant to occupy your rental unit requires choosing an applicant with a well-vetted financial and criminal background. Some potential tenants may say the right things or have the right look, but at the end of the day, could leave you high and dry on rent. Nomadic Real Estate uses an application process involving a third party credit and background check service. This ensures every applicant has a credit score of 600, an income of at least 3 times the rent, and no criminal background.

You want to look for tenants who have an income that is usually triple the rent. This lowers the risk for late-payments and guarantees a tenant that can pay for other unexpected expenses for the unit. If a potential tenant refuses to run a background check, take this as a warning sign. Move on to the next person that can provide the information and the proof that he/she can be a reliable tenant.

Photos of the Property

Images of the unit should look professional and accurate to the description of the actual property. Don’t catfish your possible tenants with pictures of a place that looks nothing like your property. Build trust with your ideal prospects to further attract the target market of your liking. Always update the photos to reflect the current appearance of your unit. 

The Appearance of the Property

Show the place as if the perfect tenant already lives there. This may help potential tenants understand the standard of upkeep you expect for your property. In other words, the quality of your property should match the quality of the tenant you are looking for. Showing an attractive and well-maintained unit is imperative to finding tenants that share the same level of responsibility when it comes to sustaining the place. So, do not forget to keep your units in top-notch condition when showing a property. 

Lease Drafting and Execution

The last step of getting that perfect tenant is to seal the deal with a legal lease. The lease must follow state guidelines and explicitly state the terms of the tenant’s living period on the property. The final execution of the lease can take several days of communication, negotiation and follow up. On the occasion that the lease falls through, sometimes landlords are stuck starting right back at square one.

At Nomadic Real Estate, securing the perfect tenant is just a small part of how we can save you time and money as property managers. If you are interested in our property management or leasing services, we would love to hear from you! Fill in the form below and someone will reach out shortly. Our consultation is completely free, and we don’t collect a fee if you aren’t collecting rent!

Looking for something? Visit our Tenant Resource Center to submit a work order. Visit our Client Resource Center to log into your account. Check out our awesome DMV located rentals. Get in touch for our property management services.

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Enhanced Reporting

Your portal includes a selection of extremely useful reports. Reports are available in the “Reports” section, and are distinct from the financial statements. Unlike financial statements which are static records, Reports are dynamic real-time records that will update with current data every time you view them. 

Scroll down to learn more about Reports:

Navigate to the "Reports" module in your portal:

Owner Portal Reports
  • Keep in mind, these reports are dynamic records. They will refresh to display current information every time you view them. 

Enhanced Rent Roll Report:

Enhanced Rent Roll Report
  • The Enhanced Rent Roll Report will show the rent amount, last payment date, move-in date, lease expiration date, and security deposit amount for each of your tenants. 
  • It will also show a portfolio summary with occupancy percentage, vacancy loss, and more!

Unit Comparison Report:

Unit Comparison Report
  • If you own multiple units (or buildings) with Nomadic, you’ll get access to the Unit Comparison Report. 
  • This report enables you to quickly compare financial performance between your units at a glance without toggling between individual reports. 

Income Statement Month-Over-Month:

Income Statement by Month Report
  • The Income Statement Detail – Monthly Report serves as a month-over-month record of portfolio performance. You’ll see itemized income and expense categories and can track monthly. This report will update with fresh data every time you view it. 

Financial Statements

Financial statements will be published to your portal on a monthly basis. The statements are found in your Documents library, and provide a historical record of all financial performance. The statements serve as a snapshot of financial performance over a given period, and are static documents (unlike Reports, the statements do not update/change in real-time). 

Scroll down for more info about the Financial Statements in your Documents library:

The Documents area contains monthly financial statements:

Owner Portal Documents
  • The statements in the Documents are are static documents. They are posted to the portal once a month to serve as a historical record of financial performance. 

Download a statement to see month and YTD financials:

Owner Portal Property Statement

You'll also find a month-over-month operating statement:

Month over Month Statement

Portal Communication Tool

You can use your owner portal to communicate with our team. Any messages you send through the portal will go straight to your Account Manager. When we reply, you’ll get an email notification and you’ll also see the message in your portal next time you log in. 

Here’s an overview of using the communication platform:

Click "Communications" and navigate to "Conversations":

Commincation Dashboard Screenshot
  • The communications module will contain a record of all messages that you create through the portal. 

Click the "New Message" button and send your message:

Owner Portal New Message Screenshot

Responses will show up in the conversation ticket:

Portal Conversation Response Screenshot
  • You’ll get an email notification whenever you get a response, and you’ll also see the message in your portal next time you log in. 

You can reply in-line using the comment box:

Owner Portal Comment

Each conversation will be logged in its entirety:

Portal Conversation Snapshot

Understanding the Ledger

Your portal includes a ledger with all transactions. The ledger is populated with data in real-time as transactions flow through our accounting software. Much of this information is also available in the Reports area, as well as the Statements in your Documents library, but the ledger is the most comprehensive resource for diving into the details. 

Please scroll through the sections below to get a better understanding of how to interpret the ledger. 

By default, transactions are sorted chronologically:

Owner Ledger Dates
  • The date reflected in the lefthand column is the actual transaction date, not the “bill date”. This is the date the transaction was actually processed. 

If you have multiple properties with Nomadic, you'll see the address for each transaction in the "Location" column:

Ledger Property Column
  • You can filter the ledger to look at just one property, all properties, or specific sets of properties. 
  • If you only have one property with us, you’ll just see the ledger for that property. 

The Description column displays the transaction type:

Owner Ledger Description Column
  • BILL: this is an expense transaction, such as for repair costs or management fees.
  • CHARGE: this is a transaction  billed to the tenant, most typically a rent payment. 
  • NACHA EXPORT: this is a credit we processed to your distribution account. This type of transaction is how you get paid! 

The Amount column shows the dollar value of each transaction:

Owner Ledger Amount Column
  • Positive Amounts: if an amount is positive, it reflects a transaction that is payable to you. Typically, this will be a rent payment that we collected from your tenants. On occasion, a positive number could also signify a journal entry or credit adjustment. 
  • Negative Amounts:  if an amount is negative, this is a transaction that is either payable to Nomadic or is an amount that has already been paid to you. Typically this will be for repair costs or management/leasing fees. Owner draws (net distributions into your checking/savings account) also reflect as negative amounts, since they have already been paid to you. 

The Account Balance column shows a sum of positive/negative transactions at a given point in time:

Owner Ledger Account Balance Column
  • Account Balance should always equal zero after a net distribution has been processed. When the balance is zero, this means that all expenses have been paid and you’ve received the remainder as net operating income, leaving a balance of zero (meaning: no one is due any money, as all funds have been distributed appropriately). 

Navigating the Propertyware Owner Portal

Your portal includes some extremely useful features that help you understand your property’s financial performance at a new level, with real-time transparency into every transaction.

Scroll through the snapshots below for an overview of portal navigation! If you need more help or have specific questions about using the portal, you can reach out to your Account Manager any time for a screen share. 

You can filter all info by date range or property:

PW Portal Filters

View a snapshot of income and expenses on your dashboard:

PW Owner Dashboard View

See every transaction in real-time on your ledger:

Owner Portal Ledger View

Statements and forms will be posted to your documents library:

Owner Portal Document Library

View a suite of real-time financial reports:

Portal Reports View

See a running list of all bills, and drill down for more detail:

Owner Portal Bills View

Under Bill Details, you'll find dates/descriptions/amounts and more:

Portal Bill Details

You can also communicate with your Account Manager through the portal:

Owner Portal Communication Tools

How do net distributions work?

Net distributions keep your accounting clean and simple. Each month we’ll collect rent from the tenants, deduct any repair expenses for the previous month and any management/leasing fees for the current month, and credit the remaining net operating income to your account. 

Net Distribution

You’ll receive a statement via email each time a net distribution is processed, and can view all transaction details in your Propertyware owner portal.