Spring Apartment Rental Market is on the Move

If you haven’t noticed yet, we will be experiencing a rush of renters and applicants looking to be on the move to find a new apartment to call their home. School is out by mid June and the next few months begins the musical chairs pirouette of packing up from one apartments and moving to the next before the music stops in August when all good renters are settled in for the start of the next school year.

Time to have your property in the best shape possible and taking notice on your curb appeal to attract those new renters. Time to rake up the yards and check with your local Board of Health Department to synchronize your schedules for leaf bag and yard cleaning pick-up. Usually leaf bags are done on the first week of the month during your normal trash pick up route day.

Clean up the yards, get your beds mulched, and freshen up the front yards with flowers. Home Depot and Lowe’s have already been having sales on mulch and flowers so you can get the job done sooner than later and still save money.

Take a good look at the front yard of your rental property all the way to the front door where the potential prospects will see and notice everything for the first time with a new set of eyes. It might be time to power wash the winter salt and dirt off of the building, clean the gutters, and start to trim back any branches and trees that could become “squirrel highways” to to roofs and residents.

After the outside looks great and everything is in order, time for a bit of spring cleaning in those common areas too. A good idea is to start from the top floor down in your cleaning efforts. Also start from the ceiling to the floors. Use gravity as your friend here. Sweeping the floors, then brushing away the cobwebs will only put junk right back on the floor you just finished cleaning. A great idea for cleaning those windows is to go from left to right on the inside of the window, and top to bottom on the outside of the window. That way if you do see a streak it will be easier to know if it is on the inside or outside of the window pane.

Finally, make sure you are on good rapport with any residents who have given their notice to move out for greener pastures. Give them plenty of advanced notice for showing dates and offer them options as to the days and times you would like to show the unit. Another great idea is to get there about 45 minutes before the first showing. You may have a resident with small children or a grandma who could use an extra hand taking out the trash and recycling or changing lightbulbs and smoke detector batteries before the showing.

Be friendly and helpful. It will all go a long way in getting a few extra nice comments from your current residents in front of your future applicants. If your unit is vacant, then make sure it is in pristine condition for a showing. The unit should not only look clean, but smell clean. Pull up your window blinds half way to let in the sunshine and make sure for the showing you have either energy efficient bulbs or a higher watt bulb to keep the place bright. All of the little details count so much to make a first impression. You want to make it easy for your prospective resident to call your rental apartment their new home.

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