Landlord advice - how you raise rent

[rodi]

I'm of the mindset that you don't raise the rent too often on good tenants. I have good tenants and we didn't raise the rent this year.

As far as incentivizing tenants to do their own repairs... Our tenants let us know whenever things go wrong - then the male tenant offers to fix it if it's something in his capabilities. My husband either agrees or does the work himself. We always pay for parts. But we do our own maintenance - so no pricey service calls. Our situation is probably a bit different since we're sharing the same lot as the rental property.

[Urchina]

I'm with Rodi. We haven't raised the rent on our tenants, and they've been in the unit 18 months.

We were already renting at the high end of the spectrum (our rental has a fenced yard, is in a great school district, has pool access and we allow dogs). When the lease ended (we're month-to-month now) we did a market evaluation and we're right in the middle of the spectrum now.

I suspect that in a year or two we'll be at the bottom of the spectrum. We may or may not raise the rent at that time. Our tenants are fabulous and we'd like to keep them for as long as possible.

We don't ask them to do their own maintenance. They don't have the skills or the interest. If we can fix it ourselves, we can. Otherwise, we pony up for our trusted tradespeople to do it quick and right. Like I said, we're interested in keeping these tenants happy.

Although... with a 1% vacancy rate in our town, getting good tenants is easier here than in some other places.