Homebuyers? Realtors flock to them.
Renters? Not so much.
Except at Traditions Realty in Riverside, where two-thirds of the company’s revenue is generated by tenant placement and property management.
The rest comes from home sales.
“We learned long ago, renters are people, too,” said Ginny Greenland, head of tenant placement.
People rent for reasons that are really very good, Greenland said — job relocation, waiting to sell another house, saving for a down payment or waiting for the market to rebound.
The renters generate income for Traditions today, and also later, when they turn into homebuyers.
Broker Sally Suslak opened Traditions with Greenland and three other partners when their former employer restructured the real estate company where they had been working.
It was 2009 and the market was in the tank.
“There was no business, no sales,” Suslak said.
Mortgage rules had changed. Instead of giving 125 percent financing, banks needed a 20 percent down payment. Prices were falling and owners were doing short sales.
The team opted for a business model that was internally counter-cyclical – based on both sales and rentals.
They turned a profit in their second month.
Traditions’ rentals are not your typical idea of what renting is, either.
The company website shows listings ranging anywhere from $500 a month to $5,000. At the high end is a 2,500-square-foot riverfront bungalow in Avondale that comes with a saltwater pool and a dock.
At the other end, a 500-square-foot efficiency for $550 still has newly tiled floors and bathrooms.
Suslak and Greenland, who’ve sold real estate in Riverside since the 1970s, own rentals themselves.
“In an older neighborhood some people think, ‘Oh, we don’t have to fix it up. We’ll just rent it and get whatever money,’” Suslak said.
“Paint it white, hose it down, next person in,” Greenland said.
Instead, at Traditions, rentals get new kitchens, new bathrooms and laundry rooms, and refinished hardwood floors.
“People wonder what our secret to getting tenants is,” Greenland said. “The answer is, fix it up, and they will come.”
It’s an approach that not only helped Traditions to win over tenants and investor-buyers, but also helped Riverside improve its image.
Suslak was chairman of Riverside Area Preservation in 1987 when the neighborhood was still fighting for its designation as a historic district. In those days, a house in Riverside could be bought for $75,000. Today, homes are $250,000 and higher.
“After the designation, people felt confident if they invested in their homes, the value wasn’t going to be lost because somebody was going to buy the house next door and do something horrible to it,” Suslak said.
Riverside has always been a diverse neighborhood in terms of ethnicity, income and education. Mixing in duplexes, fourplexes and 10-unit complexes with riverside estates is part of that diversity.
In the old days, though, it had been obvious driving down the road which homes were rentals and which were owner-occupied. Traditions’ goal for the neighborhood was to make it so no one could tell.
It’s a vision that spills over into how customers are treated when they come into Traditions’ office – everyone gets respect.
“I don’t care if they want to buy or rent, I want them to come to Riverside,” Greenland said. “People who love the area make things good for everybody.”
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