Massachusetts, where I have been practicing real estate law for more than 40 years, is an extremely "tenant-friendly" state with many people able to survive in the location they live in for more than six months with out paying rent. There is no "self-help" in Massachusetts, and people whose mortgage has been foreclosed upon achieve the status of "tenants" when the gavel goes down, with all the formalities of an eviction required for the Mortgagee to regain possession of the premises.
With this in mind, and for some other anolmalies which exist in Massacusetts, I would suggest the following approaches if you are going to have tenants in a Massachusetts property:
1. Be generous when setting the rental price. What I mean by this is consider very carefully the rent you are charging. My advice to my clients is to take some time to determine the fair market rent, and then charge five per cent lower than that figure. While to some of you this may seem like throwing away money, I think it is a tactical maneuver that will pay huge dividends. More and more people have been forced into rental situations these days because of much more stringent lender mortgage loan standards and a still declining economy. That has caused people to have an awareness of rental prices which they may not have had before. If your tenant knows that the place he or she is renting is a bargain that they will not want to lose, they will do some positive things like paying the rent on time and keep the apartment or home in good condition. Do the arithmetic. if you have even a one month vacancy, you have lost, forever, eight and one-half per cent of annual rentals. Providing a discount in advance will keep your premises occupied.
2. Somewhere down the line, you are going to need tenant cooperation.There are many situations I can point to where this is the case. In Boston, if you convert Apartments to Condominiums, you need to give the existing tenant notice of same and the right to purchase. If you have cordial relations with your tenant, you can involve the tenant in the process. If they like you, they will cooperate. If they have a bad relationship with you, a resolute tenant can delay, or even prevent, a conversion. You may decide to sell the premises, either to an investor or an owner-occupant. In either case, your relationship with your tenant will be critical to the success of your sale. Having a tenant who is generally satisfied with the way he or she has been treated will promote your sale to an investor, who may want to keep the tenant in place. If the tenant needs to move out, your good relations will make that process non-confrontation, and the time and money you will save will be substantial.
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