It is vital to create a rental that is appealing to start generating money quicker from your rental. There are many details that go into it that will get more quality prospective tenants to reach out to schedule a listing. Some include: High-quality pictures, a visual listing description, and promote listing everywhere to get as many views as possible.
For creating a rental listing to get the unit filled, you can outsource it or do it yourself. It is not hard at all, though if your time is needed elsewhere then it might make sense to hire a realtor to do the showings and listings for you. If you will be doing it yourself these are some helpful tips:
High-quality Pictures Gets High-quality Tenants
Taking the time to take quality pictures of the unit is very important since it is the very first impression the future tenant sees! When taking pictures make sure there is adequate lighting. Turn on all the lights so there are no glare or shadows. Also, what really helps prospective tenants know what the floor plan is like without actually going to see it is making a diagram of the unit’s floor plan. A diagram will make them visually see the layout of the unit better. Some listings even go as far as doing a virtual walkthrough with Matterport 3D video cameras (there’s even one for your phone to use).
The Listing Description
should be short and descriptive talking about what people would desire in the property/area. Some topics to mention are: who pays what for utilities if pets are allowed, the type of property, how parking is set up, how the washer and dryer is set up (or not on-premise).
Get Awareness of The Rental Listing
Now, let us start putting up the listings. Ideally, we want to appeal to the masses on all sites where people would look for rentals. Some sites to put the listing on are: Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, Zumper, Cozy (now owned by Aprtments.com), Zillow Rental Manager (gets posted on Trulia, Zillow, and Hotpads), Apartments.com, and Realtor.com. There are many other sites, but these are the main ones to do.
Keep Personal Information Separate from the Listing
Creating a VOIP phone to receive calls from potential renters (ie: Google Voice App). Also, you can use a business realty name like “ABC Realty Holdings” and then create a Gmail with it. After tenants are in place you can continue using this separate phone number and email too for communication. House hackers always debate should the tenant know you are the landlord and where that can be a finicky topic you should set the presence early of communication separate from your personal information just in case they do have a problem with knowing they are paying money to you later on.
Should You Do a Rental Open House?
A rental open house is a good idea after you create a rental listing. It gets more people to the property to look at it, creates more demand when prospective tenants see a lot of people want the same exact home, it saves a lot of work on scheduling a bunch of people, and most importantly with the hype being created you can be able to get a couple of applicants that very same day.
However, we have to be mindful that we are not wasting our time. If the rental open house is not getting a lot of visitors or none at all then it won’t be worth it. Odds are unless the listing is on an MLS the rental open house won’t get enough eyeballs.
In Conclusion
Having the process in place to create a rental listing appealing will save you in the long run. A listing on the market (even if not being sold) too long becomes unattractive to people looking for a new home since they automatically think there is something wrong with it didn’t get rented quickly enough.
