Imagine if your tenants always paid their rent, not merely on time, but EARLY? Startling concept, isn't it. While many tenants start out performing well, over time many become lax with their rental payments, their treatment of the property, and their adherence to the rental agreement. Here are five tips to ensure your tenants (and thus your rental investments) stay at peak performance.

Tip 1: Offer a carrot for early rental payments.

People love to feel like they're achieving a bargain, or saving money. Take advantage of this human urge by offering an early payment discount, or some other incentive if your tenants pay their rent early. It could be a $50 break on rent, a 5% discount on the following month's rent, a credit towards their utility bill, a gift card to Best Buy, or anything else you can think of that might make them tick.

Tip 2: Use the stick for late rental payments.

Just as you want to positively reinforce their behavior for paying rent early, you have to punish them for paying rent late. Your rental agreement probably includes a late payment penalty (and if it doesn't then it should), which you should enforce by sending tenant notices out as soon as the grace period is over. Filing for eviction over a $40 late fee may seem ridiculous, but it will send an extremely strong message to your tenants to shape up, and you probably won't have the same problem again when they scramble to pay that late fee and avoid eviction.

Tip 3: Use the stick for rental agreement violations.

Once again, you need to show your tenants that you mean business if they start violating the rental agreement. Let's say your rental agreement doesn't allow pets, but you find out the tenant has been keeping a mastiff. If you send them a tenant notice informing them that they must cure the violation or vacate, followed by an eviction complaint, you put yourself in an excellent negotiating position. From there, you might agree to let them keep the mastiff, but only if they pay an additional $50/month, etc., but first you have to show them that you will not tolerate any violation of your rental agreement.

Tip 4: Stop by the property for rental inspections.

Whether scheduled or unscheduled, it's a good idea to swing by your rental properties as often as you can, to keep an eye on how your tenants are treating your investment (and to keep an eye out for rental agreement violations). Once again, this states in no uncertain terms that you are a serious landlord, and aren't messing around when it comes to your rental property. It will also encourage your tenants to keep the property clean, if they never know when the landlord might be coming around.

Tip 5: Report your tenants payment history to the credit bureaus.

Credit is a big deal, and determines how much house you can buy, how much car you can buy, whether you get that personal loan when you're in a pinch. Many tenants appreciate this, and will go to some lengths to protect their credit ratings. If they know that their rental payments are being reported, they'll have a strong incentive to actually make those payments on time, or even early.

The bottom line with all of these tips is that YOU have to be on the ball, if you expect your tenants to be. Be proactive, be aggressive, be responsive, and enforce your rental agreement strictly through tenant notices and other policies, or else your tenants and rental investments will perform poorly and you'll lose money hand over fist.