What makes the perfect tenant?

What makes the perfect tenant? What defines them as being good, bad or plain ugly?

We know, these categorisations may seem silly, but humour us for a moment, and ask yourself this key question: what does a tenant need to possess, to make them the dream tenant?

It may seem like an obvious question, but there is more to the above mentioned titles than who does or doesn’t pay you rent? There are other factors you need to take into consideration.

To help, here is a breakdown of these three categories.

Good Tenants: now you probably already have a fair idea of what makes a good tenant – paying their rent on time (or even early); obeying the rules stated in their lease and more importantly, caring about your property.

The last thing you need is a tenant who is rawdy, who disturbs the neighbours and has no respect for your rental property.

Instead you want the reverse. The ideal tenant who will make your life as a professional landlord, one filled with peace and easy monthly profits.

Now if you do manage to find a tenant like this, we recommend you try to keep them.

And one of the many ways you can achieve this is by listening to their queries; doing their maintenance repairs fast, and keeping their best interest at heart. By showing them that you appreciate them; when the end of their lease appears on the horizon, it will be them asking YOU to extend it, not you.

Bad Tenants: these are the in-betweeners. The ones who pay their rent late and are constantly creating problems: complaining, annoying their neighbours… the ones who try to bend the rules of their tenancy agreement.

Now if you can recognise the tell-tale signs already in your own current tenants, then we have got one important recommendation that you should follow: document all your interactions with them.

If a neighbour complains, note it down – the date, the reason and what took place (in particular your own involvement in the situation). In this kind of scenario, it is good to document everything and to provide warnings to your tenant (or notice) in both a written and verbal form.

The reason we suggest this, is just in case your tenant moves from the bad to the ugly department – and this happens more than you think.

By having a record of all your communications and the procedures you followed, if it does come to eviction, then all of this can work in your favour.

But please remember – you too are under an agreement in your tenants contract. So it is important to play it by the book, and stay within your rights. Do not push too much.

Ugly Tenants: Now no professional landlord wants to be faced with this situation, where they have got a tenant who refuses to pay the rent and who is always breaking the rules of their contract.

If your tenant becomes one of those, there is truly only one path to follow (especially if you have already given your tenants the chance to change) – eviction. A tenant like this is of no benefit to your monthly positive cash flow. In fact, they are hindering your profits, in their refusal to pay their rent – leaving you essentially with an empty property, with no way to fill it until they are gone.

The best way to deal with this one is to make sure all your tenancy agreements have the clause that will enable you to give notice and evict your tenants, if, they have clearly broken the agreed rules.

Eviction is relatively speedy as long you have followed procedure and have put everything into place in case of this eventuality.

Here are a few things to remember that will help speed up the process:

•    Have you issued your tenants with the proper notice? (depending on the contract you have chosen, will depend on the length you can give)
•    Even if the tenant has upped and left, make sure not to disturb the property into the situation has been sorted – you cannot remove belongings without permission.
•    Follow the rules stated in the lease and the law – they know what they are doing and it will go a lot more smoothly if you follow them carefully.


So which of these 3 groups do you want living in your rental property? The first one of course, but you need to find them first, which is why it is always good to research the local tenancy of your property first.

What is the demand of the area? How are other property investors faring in this niche?  And here’s the biggie – what are your tenants like?

When you have found the right rental property, go and meet your potential tenants for yourself. Don’t leave it to a property manager or your real estate agent.

Arrange a meet; meet them in person and assess for yourself if they could be the right tenant for you.

You know what they say about first impressions… they are the ones that count.