Vacancy Risk Continued

A renter decides in minutes whether your home feels cared for or risky and the condition you show them is the condition they believe you’ll maintain. We dig into a listener question that hits every landlord and property manager sooner or later: how does the condition of a rental property shape the tenant you attract, the rent you can charge, and the relationship you’ll have after move-in?

We talk through why listing a unit that’s “almost ready” often backfires, even when the owner’s intent is to reduce vacancy. When prospects walk a home with unfinished paint, visible damage, or a space that hasn’t had its final professional cleaning, they build expectations from what they can see. We break down the real-world domino effect: fewer strong applicants, more uncertainty, and a rush to finish repairs to match a prospect’s timeline, which can lead to shortcuts and immediate post move-in complaints.

We also cover the complications of showing an occupied property during a 30-day notice period. Even good tenants have boxes, clutter, and limited access, and prospects may need to return for a second look while they keep touring competing rentals. Finally, we connect condition to pricing and market rent: when the home looks half done, renters mentally discount it, no matter what upgrades you promise.

If you want better tenant quality and fewer headaches, make-ready matters. Subscribe, share this with an owner who likes to “list early,” and leave a review with your biggest turnover lesson.

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Question

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome back to the Rick and Child Show, Property Management Unfiltered. Today we are going to cover a topic that was actually a question.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

From our last uh podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Which would be episode six. Episode six.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

So continuation. This is this is an important one. And there's there's there's a fair amount of uh information in this one. And it basically is um how the condition impacts the tenants that you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah, like the quality of tenant.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yep, the quality of tenant.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

So it's an important one, and we've talked about this for

Why Showing Too Early Backfires

SPEAKER_00 1:05

for years. Um and there are many things that go into this.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Right. Yeah. I promise we're not trying to spend all of your money. Um, but when we get the request from a property owner where a property is almost done, and you know they're working on it, and they ask us to throw it on the market, um, you know, that is not the best practice. That's not the best use of our time. That's not the best use of our leasing agents' time. It actually, when a property is not complete or it is still maybe dirty, hasn't been cleaned yet, there's still some damaged things that haven't been uh fixed yet, and then we start showing it to tenants, it's usually not good. So that's what we mean by condition versus tenant quality.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, so all you know, ultimately they're going, if it's not that we haven't done this, we have this has been requested before, but it it usually we don't get a good result from it.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Um kind of we're kind of setting the precedent that you know it's it's kind of hard to unsee a property. You come in, you look at the property, you're like, man, it doesn't look that great, it's not quite finished yet. Or it could even be that somebody has put their notice in to move out, and the owner says, Hey, can we start showing the property with a tenant in there? Um it's not that it couldn't possibly work, but things would have to line up so well. And and what I mean by that is that um in order for that to really work, the property has to be in great condition.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Right. So we obviously do that inspection first when somebody asks us that, because we get that a lot and we understand where they're going with it.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

And it's not that it couldn't work, right? It possibly could if the property was in great condition, the tenant was in there, was taking immaculate condition to it, then people can come in there and they can say, Wow, okay, I can see what this property could look like. There could be an actual benefit to it.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

But traditionally, it doesn't work out. It doesn't work out because it usually doesn't look that way. And like I was saying, you can't really unsee the stuff. People um when they see something in the property that maybe wasn't being taken care of or the tenant wasn't maybe doing some of the right things in the property, it's in the back of their mind.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

It is.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

And um, it's just it makes it tough.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Right. Well, and you know, when you're when you're working on a property and you allow t uh prospective tenants to come through, you might not, like you said, have gotten to something. So they're seeing the stains on the carpet, they're seeing the walls that are damaged or not painted yet, or they're seeing it to where the property is just not clean. Um, you know, a couple of different things could happen. You know, you you definitely get the type of tenant that uh that type of condition calls for, right? Or the after a while, if you think that you got somebody interested because they have come through, now you're rushing the repairs. Now we probably have run into a whole another set of issues, right? Because now we're rushing repairs, we're not doing what we initially were going to do so that we don't lose this tenant and they're on a quick timeline because they've already been looking and they want to do it, and you know, we've qualified them, of course, but their timeline is shorter than what it would normally take us for repairs, and now we're rushing it, and now they're moving into a property that has issues after they move in.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Right, and they're trying to make that decision, right? Right. Hey, do I want to live in this property?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Do I ru do want to live in this property? Do I want to be where this property sits? And we always want to put that property in the best possible light we can. For sure. And that's the biggest

The Risk Of Rushed Repairs

SPEAKER_00 4:45

thing is that we you know, we already know that, hey, a tenant is going to be critical about certain things in the property. We don't want to give them any reason to uh say, oh, well, you know, it looks like it's not being maintained, doesn't look great. Um, you know, especially with the qualified tenants. Yeah. We only get so many qualified tenants to come through these properties. You know, everybody's not qualified. So the ones that they when you get people to come that actually are qualified, you don't want to give them any reason.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Right, right. And we said on our last episode that, you know, if you move people in with a property that has a ton of issues, it doesn't really make for a good tenant relationship. And then they're they're wanting to move out, they want their deposit back. Like we run into it, right? So when a property looks good, a property is done and it's been done right, that's when we show it. And again, I understand what they're trying to do, but it always backfires. It does. You know, and when we're when we're showing, if we do say, okay, we'll start showing a property that a tenant lives in already, it's not always that it's damaged or dirty.

Showing With Tenants Still Inside

SPEAKER_03 5:55

It's sometimes because they're just moving. They don't want people in and out. Let's respect the people that live there. They have 30 days to move. I understand, but they have boxes everywhere. Sometimes it's not good in a good enough um light, even to look at. You can't see everything you want to see. So what happens? They want to come back anyways. Right. You know, and in the meantime, they're still looking around.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

They're still looking around, so now you're talking about your competition again. Again. Because someone now has looked at your property and says, okay, well, I don't really know how this is gonna turn out. And that's really kind of like the I guess the challenge. They don't know, a tenant doesn't know what that property is gonna look like when it's actually ready. They're seeing it in an uh in condition that it's not ready.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

And so it's tough for them to make a decision. Like, okay, so I'm gonna put an application fee. I'm I really don't know what this is gonna look like, but it when they come in and that property is clean, it looks the way it's supposed to look when it's gonna be rented, they can make a educated decision.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

And and you know what? It's hey, look, $40 for somebody to put an application in, it's it's a lot of money for people to well they want to be sure. They want to be sure. They don't want to just put it in to say, well, I hope it looks okay. I hope it looks good.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Yeah, because again, what does that do? That leads to problems when they move in. Oh, I don't like this, this, this. And then we as a property management company start to get all those complaints. And then it's very hard to make a tenant happy once they've moved in and seen a halfway repaired property that they had different expectations for, you know, and now they don't

Cleanliness Shapes Expectations Fast

SPEAKER_03 7:30

want to live there anymore.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

And that's the key word, expectations because they don't know what to expect.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

They really don't, they don't know what that property is gonna look like. And you know, the thing that we always go back to, um, and we've been harping on it for years, is like the cleanliness of the property. And, you know, uh many times the first thing they do, they go into the kitchen, they pull the drawers open. You know, all these things. So that's why it's so important to, you know, even if it's vacant and you've got it close.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

You've got it close, but it's not quite there, it's better just to wait.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Yeah, because cleaning is the final step.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

It's the final step.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

So if you haven't had that final step and it's not released and ready to go, really there is no point because clean is the ultimate that we hear from everybody.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Right. And once they see it, like I said, when they pull a drawer open they pull a drawer open and they see it's dirty or they see a couple of mouse droppings or whatever it is, and that clean it doesn't mean that there's necessarily an issue with the property. It means the last person in there was not keeping the property really clean because you know, I don't care what kind of a property is, mice, if there's a food source, they figure out a way to get in. If there's no food source and people are uh you know keeping the property and really you know cleaned up, you know, those kind of issues don't generally happen.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

So, you know, it's just one of those things that's in the back of their mind when they see it. Like, okay, there's already a pre-existing problem.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Right. Another thing I think is when they are looking at it when it's not completely done, then you know, when you're determining a price, they're looking in it again, halfway repaired, not cleaned. They think it should be one price when we're asking for another one. So now their expectations are super high, and they're thinking in their mind this place is gonna be completely redone, you know, because no matter what we tell them, this is what they hear, it goes through the filter, right, of what they expect versus what we are the picture we're trying to paint for them. Right. Right. So it just eliminates so much um indifferences between a tenant and us when we can just wait till we have a finished product.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

And it's just so important.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Right. And and that price, so we talked about this in the last episode setting that price.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So that is a big challenge because you know, we want to get, you know, market rent for the property, but it's difficult for somebody to see that they look at that property

Pricing, Market Rent, And Perceived Value

SPEAKER_00 9:55

and they go, well, I know what market rent is, I see what everything else is out there. This doesn't, I I can't put the two together.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

You know, they it just doesn't look like it should be at that mark. It just doesn't add up for them. It doesn't add up.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

You know, so we want to get the most we can, and that's gonna be when the property is in the best condition that it can possibly be in, and that should be when it's ready to rent.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

That's right, that's right. So we're not cutting corners, we're not getting tenants that don't qualify. Um, you know, we're we're putting out the best product possible, but also, you know, because we're not rushing repairs, but also from a property owner standpoint, when you do those halfway repairs, that costs you down the line.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

You know, it's not, I mean, deferred maintenance, honestly, that can be one of your biggest um expenses. Yeah, you know, if you're not doing things right up front. And yes, it's gonna cost a little bit more sometimes, but if you do it right the first time, usually you don't have to do it down the line.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, and it's coming anyway.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

It is coming anyway, it's coming anyway.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

You're gonna have to do it. Um, and you know, you might as well just get it over and do it, do it the right way. Yeah. And and get it off your plate. And and I get it. Hey, look, it is about dollars and cents, it's about money, and I totally understand it. But um, you know, it's gonna resolve there's gonna be bigger problems because of it. You know, especially we've seen it happen, man, where somebody cuts corners on a property, a tenant gets in the property, and it's just literally it's call after call. And then you start to equate not only am I paying the expense of actually getting it done, yeah, I'm also paying

Deferred Maintenance Costs More Later

SPEAKER_00 11:35

us now multiple times to go out to the property to fix these things that could have should have been done up front.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

So that's that's one of the things when it comes to um when you turn a property, right? Is that hey, we know that it's not gonna look perfect. They're rentals, we understand that they're rentals, yeah. But you want to put them in the best light possible.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Because it could come back. And and and if there's things that are gonna create challenges for a tenant out there, the th they're gonna have to be done anyway.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Right. I mean, and ultimately, I think that you know, if you're presenting a product that is halfway done or you know still has cleaning to do or is not completely finished, now you're putting out to people that, hey, it doesn't matter to me. So you're getting a tenant that says, hey, it doesn't matter to me either.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, true. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 12:27

So if I'm moving into a property that's halfway done, well, I'm gonna take care of it the way I got it.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Right. So and that, you know, that that's a that's another good point because it does set the precedence. It does. You know, you when properties look great, they move in. First of all, tenants are excited.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

I mean, it's a new place.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

They got a new place, it looks great. And you know what? They're proud of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

And they can't wait to show their friends.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Yeah. Like, hey, come on from the pull over things, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah, you know, and that's what you want.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Because tendency is they're gonna take better care of the property. But to your point, you know, if it doesn't look great out of the gate, they're like, well, what's the point? This is a place for me to stay, it's just to get me by, and I'm not gonna worry about it.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yeah, no, we we've run into a lot of situations like that over the years. You know, we've been doing this for a really long time, and that has happened way more than I can count. You know, and they end up.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

That could that's gonna be a deterrent.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Yeah, those are not the ones applying.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

They're not gonna be the ones applying. And even though somebody else might be uh uh qualified as well, it's that that precedent is like I'm not gonna worry about this.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

It's not there, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

You know, so for the people that are you really want to be in there, they're gonna be the ones that they're not they're not gonna accept it.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

They're gonna say this isn't for me.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

And that's who you want.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

That's

Wrap Up And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_03 13:45

right. Ultimately, that's what you want. So we just wanted to cover that question. Um, and that is a continuation from the last episode. Again, if you have any other questions that didn't get answered, please put them below. Um, and then I think that's it.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

I think that's where we can wrap it up. Don't forget to uh, you know, stay tuned and uh like and subscribe. Like and subscribe, that helps us helps the channel out.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

And we will see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Have a great day.