How to Avoid Winter Lease Expiration

There are few things harder for a landlord than dealing with lease expiration during non prime moving months. The majority or rental occupants move in the late spring as the school season ends, or the late summer, right before school starts up again. When leases expire during the school year, or even worse in the dead of the winter, chances are you will have less good prospective tenants to rent your property. For this reason, you will want to avoid winter lease expiration.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Write partial lease term. When a lease is broken or a tenant moves unexpectedly in the winter, the next tenant’s lease can also be expected to end in the winter unless you partial lease term. This means that if you start a lease on January 1, it may behoove you to end the lease on May 31 of or July 31. At this time, your tenant can renew the lease for a full year or give the next person a full year’s lease.
2. Write a longer lease term. If your tenant does not want to deal with a lease renewal in six months, ask if they will be willing to have their lease expire in 18 months so that the lease can end in the summer. Let them know that this benefits them greatly by eliminating the chance for an increased rent payment for 18 months.
3. Charge a lower monthly rent to a tenant who agrees to have a shorter lease term. If they are hesitant to have a lease term that is shorter than one year, and you really want to rent to them, offer to lower the rent $25.00 a month to sign a lease that ends in the summer so you are not left with an empty unit during the hard to rent months. The discount will cost you less in the long run.
4. Offer the first month free if the tenant will sign an 18-month lease. The month loss will make it worth your while to have a unit occupied for a full 18 months. Some landlords replace the free first month, with a free last month if they have stayed for the full 18 months.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid month to month tenancies. These agreements may be great if you rent to difficult tenants as you can get rid of them quickly, but it is better to screen tenants carefully and avoid month-to-month agreements entirely.