Selling your New Orleans condo with a tenant can be a little harder than sellers may think. The seller is not as motivated but likes the income while the tenant is living there. Most of the time the tenants are nice. Most will co-operate most of the time. It is not a priority for them to sell the condo, they are paying rent for a place to stay. The showing do interupt there lifestyles.
As a seller you will miss appointments as the tenant cannot always be ready to show the unit. In a slow market you have less people looking and each showing is more important. Many agents will call you with a couple of hours notice and this just cannot be done with a tenant. As an agent you figure these sellers are not as serious since income is coming in. You however do not know. The tenants will have good intentions but life is always throwing us curves and plans change.
It just makes everything a little harder to get the tenant, the listing agent and the showing agent lined up for a showing. When I am on the buying side I often do not schedule a tenant occupied unit unless I feel that is one of the better buys available. If the tenant lets us put a lock-box on the door and will just take a call that someone is showing up a X time, then we have no problem.
Many times the tenant is not prepared to have the unit shown but it gets shown anyway. If the tenant has a dog or cat that can also add to the fun and smells. If the pet is mean then it just multiples the effect of a negative showings. It may not leave a good impression when it does get shown. The opposite of staging a condo is having a messy tenant. The tenants may have valid reasons not to show or be messy, but the prospective buyer cares little about this.
There are going to be many times the tenants have been great but all to often the latter is true. I have had both this year and its hard to over come the unmotivated tenant. It cost the seller in the end in terms of market time and price.
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