The first three days after move-in decide how many phone calls I get for the next year. I learned that the hard way with my second property, back when I handed a new tenant nothing but a key and a smile. Twelve days later I got a 10pm call asking which breaker was for the kitchen. Now every unit I manage gets a welcome packet before the tenant even picks up the keys, and my after-move-in questions have dropped by something like 70%.
A welcome packet isn’t a fancy binder with a logo on it. It’s a handful of printed pages, maybe 8 to 10, that answer the questions every tenant has in week one but is too embarrassed to call and ask.
The utility and building basics page
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This is the single page that saves me the most calls. I list the exact location of the main water shutoff valve, the breaker box, and the gas shutoff, each with a small photo so there’s no confusion about which lever is which. I also write out the trash and recycling schedule for the ward, because in Japan this varies block by block and getting it wrong means a bag sitting outside for six days with a rejection sticker on it. I include the property’s official address in the format the tenant will need for city hall registration, since that single detail trips up almost every new arrival.
Appliance instructions in plain language
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Every unit I own has a water heater, an air conditioner, and usually a combination washer, and none of them come with manuals a normal person wants to read. I take about 20 minutes per unit and write a half-page cheat sheet for each appliance: how to set the water heater to eco mode, which remote button actually turns off the AC instead of just the display, how to clear the washer’s lint filter without flooding the floor. That 20 minutes has probably saved me 15 or more service calls over the past year alone.
Repair and emergency contact information
I give every tenant two numbers: mine for anything that can wait until morning, and a 24-hour emergency line for genuine problems like a burst pipe or no heat in January. I’m explicit about what counts as an emergency versus what can wait u2014 a dripping faucet is not a 2am call, but water coming through the ceiling is. Being specific here cuts down on panicked late-night texts and also protects tenants who genuinely have an emergency from feeling like they’re bothering me.
House rules, written down once
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Verbal rules get forgotten or reinterpreted. I put mine on paper:
- Quiet hours from 10pm to 7am, which matters a lot in a building with shared walls
- Where to park a bicycle or scooter, since most of my properties only have space for 6 to 8 bikes total
- Guest policy u2014 stays over 14 consecutive nights need a quick heads-up to me
- No smoking inside any unit, with the balcony designated as the only exception
- How to report a maintenance issue, including a simple photo-plus-description format that speeds up every repair I do
Having this in writing means I can point back to page 4 instead of arguing about what I supposedly said during the walkthrough.
Local neighborhood information
New tenants, especially ones relocating from another city, want to know where the nearest supermarket, pharmacy, and train station are before they’ve unpacked a single box. I include a simple hand-drawn-style map with the five or six places people ask about most: the closest convenience store, a coin laundry if the unit doesn’t have its own washer, the nearest clinic, and the ward office. It costs me nothing but 30 minutes of typing, and it’s consistently the page tenants mention they appreciated most in the exit surveys I run.
A short move-in condition checklist
I always include a one-page checklist for the tenant to walk through and sign within the first 3 days, noting any existing scuffs, scratches, or wear. This isn’t just customer service u2014 it’s protection for both sides when it comes time to settle the deposit at move-out. Across my properties, having this signed checklist on file has cut deposit disputes to almost zero, compared to the two or three arguments a year I used to deal with before I started doing this.
Putting together a welcome packet took me a weekend the first time, and now I just update the template for each property in under an hour. That’s the approach I use across all 9 of my properties, and it’s one of the cheapest things I do that actually makes tenants stay longer and call me less.
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15 years of landlord experience u00b7 3 apartment buildings u00b7 DIY renovations that saved millions of yen. Browse all articles at diytosan.com
