Do you know who your landlord is?

Have you ever been in the hot, humid, Houston heat trapped inside of a building with no AC?  Imagine if you signed a lease in an office building and the chillers (AC) shut down for 4 weeks.  What would you do?

One of my clients sent me a referral to work with several tenants that were in this very situation.  When I walked inside of the building at 11 a.m. it must have been at least 90 degrees in the buildings.  There were tenants in the parking lots working out of their cards to avoid the heat and get AC.  Other business where shut down, some had already relocated, some even purchased portable AC units!

I can tell you several other stories like this, (especially after the last hurricane hit Houston) but I would rather share this for now.  Tenants, know your landlord!  Even though most of my clients do not ask, I volunteer the management history of a building so that the tenants have an idea of who they will be “living” with for the next several years.

Any tenant that has had a bad experience with a landlord will not sign a lease without having some kind of comfort level with the landlord’s history.  A good management company or landlord is like a good insurance policy.  You really don’t care about what they are doing until something breaks down.  When something happens,  (something always happens) talk to your broker before you sign a lease to make sure you know background  of the landlord and management company.

Here is the plug for using a Tenant broker like myself:

As a Tenant broker, I am able to present the most objective, accurate view of a property because I work for the tenant, and not any specific property.  The landlord broker is hired to get a tenant to sign to a specific building. We help our clients select the absolute best building based on the client’s criteria.