Landscaping for Rental Properties

The issue of handling landscaping at your rental property often arises. Over the years, we have tried several approaches to achieve the best result for our clients. After years of dealing with landscape challenges, we always recommend that our clients hire professional landscape maintenance for their rental property, especially for homes.

There are several reasons we recommend this approach. Unfortunately, the majority of tenants will not take care of the landscape in a satisfactory and consistent manner. Many tenants do not even have a lawn mower, let alone other necessary lawn and landscaping tools needed to do the job correctly. Maintaining the curb appeal at your property is a big deal. It ensures your property always looks its best, avoids complaints from your neighbors, and greatly benefits the tenants. Often this additional expense can be offset by setting the rental rate accordingly. It really becomes a win-win at this point.

The alternative is to try and have the tenants handle it (which, again, history shows they don't do it or they do a substandard job). Then, our only recourse is to send them a notice warning them to take care of it, or we will have to have it done professionally and then try to bill them and/or move to evict if they continue to fail to perform.

It becomes a challenge when the property owner is unhappy that their landscaping is not being maintained. We, the property management company, have to be the bad guys to try and get the tenants to comply, and it becomes a messy situation.

Don't get me wrong; some tenants do an adequate job, and a few do a great job. However, this is not the norm and through experience, we have found that everyone is happier and better off if the landscaping is outsourced to professionals. In the event that we have an owner opt to try and have the tenants be responsible for the landscaping, then we advise the owners to set their expectations at a reasonable level.