The need for licensed property management and owner protection are the topics of this recent video talk from Nicholas Meyer of Downtown Suites in Vancouver.

Should landlords have a closed one year lease, with no month to month extensions allowed or use the standard 1 year lease and continue on month to month?
The standard form agreement is for the lease to be one year and then go month to month. If the tenancy is to be for one year only, the tenant has to initial agreement to this. Very few people will want to take a large or expensive suite and not have the security of knowing that they can continue on indefinitely, so we do find it is harder to rent without such an option.

On the other hand, with a one year lease, the tenancy officially ends at end of term. Tenants are not obliged to actually give notice, they may not cooperate with releasing, and usually are not responsive on whether they are staying on etc. We have had situations where they move out and then we have an empty month to then try and get the suite re-rented.
The advantages of the approach we use at Downtown Suites are as follows:

1. The rent can be renegotiated should the market warrant it. The owner can possibly avoid the legislated maximum increase allowed by the provincial government (this year currently 4%) on ongoing agreements.

2. In the event of a sale or the owner wishing to move into their own property, the tenant does not have to be asked to leave, under current legislation the landlord is required to pay one months rent for asking the tenant to move out.

Rents have increased quite significantly over the past year, quality tenants are becoming scarcer and the reality is properties are becoming much less affordable for the tenant rental pool (whose wages haven’t increased in the same ratio). There are also hundreds more rental suites coming on each month even though demand is still quite strong.
For more info, here is a link to the Residential Tenancy web site which governs these transactions.

Are you a real estate investor thinking it is better to rent out your suite furnished rather than unfurnished? You may think again after hearing what our research and experience has concluded. As President of Downtown Suites Ltd. I am asked this question frequently, so have decided to answer in this videoblog, which pinpoints some of the problems in renting out furnished suites and outlines the benefits of the unfurnished rental scenario.

I also outlined some of these problems in an earlier blogpost.