Tenant turnover is the single most challenging routine element of managing any rental property. Your turnover timer starts the moment your previous tenant hands over the keys. From there, you have a considerable checklist of inspection, cleaning, paperwork, and – most importantly – marketing in order to find your next tenant.
A complete success would look like a new tenant signing the lease before the turn of the month, as the fresh paint and carpet cleaning solution are barely dry. But to do this, you will need effective and timely rental property marketing to line up the best prospective renters before you start to pile up a considerable amount of time without the month’s rent coming into your bank account. After all, a vacant unit means money lost for you and your real estate investment.
You also need time for careful tenant selection, and to find the best tenants among local applicants. You are looking for financial stability, responsible stewardship of the property, and the potential for long-term tenancy. Having access to a solid tenant screening process can also be instrumental in ruling out anyone with an eviction history or unsavory criminal record.
Let’s take a look at the most effective strategies to market your rental property and get the best quality tenants with each vacancy turnover.
Where do modern renters look for their next rental home? They start online. Today, everyone house hunting starts on popular rental sites like Zillow, Trulia, Facebook Marketplace, and Apartments.com. There are dozens of listing platforms, each slightly different and all of them a potential for showcasing your rental units online and especially through Google’s search results. When you want to reach the maximum range of prospective tenants – or target a specific market of local tenants, you need solid online marketing strategies.
Today’s tenants have no reason to spend time on rental homes that don’t offer a great photo tour, a full listing of features, or even a 3D virtual tour. Unless you’re the only reasonably-priced housing option in town, an online listing is a must-have to attract new prospective tenants. In fact, you likely want to list on a wide range of online platforms to maximize your marketing efforts and to reach a wider range of potential tenants.
Effective advertising for your rental property is enticing, informational, and memorable. It must compete with other rental units on the market and in your price range. In the last five years, the standards for a competitive rental listing have gone up as technology has become more accessible. Virtual tours are becoming the norm in many rental markets and the average renter automatically sorts their online results based on specific listed features and amenities like an in-unit washer and dryer or pet friendliness.
Great online marketing for your rental home primarily consists of a complete, detailed property listing accompanied by a gorgeous photo tour. Step it up a notch by asking your photographer to shoot a 3D tour of the house using 360-degree cameras at key points on a walking path through the home.
You want to show your potential renters the home in its best light with a clear understanding of the features and floorplan, while also making your home easy to find (and sort for) through online listing sites.
How can you increase the reach of your rental advertisements? Start by listing on multiple platforms. Then use social media and select platform marketing to market the immediate availability of your rental home.
How do you build a compelling rental listing online? These four elements will help any property listing attract more prospective tenants and compete with other local rentals.
Tell your future renters what the home has to offer, and don’t spare any detail. Write a warm and complete description of the home from the front garden to the back laundry room and everything in between. List its number of bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as its style, size, and floorplan.
Provide a description of the appliances and amenities, any recent upgrades, the view from key windows, and what it’s like to live in the neighborhood. Renters today are more aware than ever that they are choosing not just a place to live, but an entire at-home experience when selecting a rental home. Tell them what that experience will be like.
Each time you turn over your rental unit, check the local rent prices to stay competitive. You don’t want to lose quality tenants to a too-high monthly price or leave money on the table if the average neighborhood rent has gone up. In recent years, rent has gone up in almost every metro in the country, so we recommend staying up to date on trends in your rental market.
Set a reasonable rental price that will attract your target audience and comfortably cover your property management expenses. Use homes in the same neighborhood of a similar size and design as your baseline. One of the easiest ways to find the right rental price for your unit is to use TurboTenant’s free online tool.
Photos are everything in an online rental home marketing strategy. A detailed description is great, but when tenants are searching for homes online, they’re really surfing through photo galleries and 3D tours. The most competitive listings have a 3D tour, which is fortunately quite easy to arrange with a local photographer on a sunny afternoon (3D cameras hate shadows).
What you really need is a compelling photo tour of the house – images that help your future tenants understand the feel, size, and floorplan flow of the house without attending an open house. Many people are still looking for no-contact real estate, so great photos and 3D tours are essential for helping them make a smart housing choice. Unsurprisingly, homes without photos or with bad photos are the most likely to go unrented for long periods of time.
Don’t just create listings, advertise. Get out there and let the locals know that your home is available for rent. You can even buy a few PPC (pay-per-click) ads to market your home directly to search engine users who are looking for rental homes in your area or join house-hunting boards like Craigslist or Reddit where current home-seekers will see that you have a single-family house, apartment, or room available to rent immediately.
The best property management software will even give you the ability to create a single advertising listing for your property and syndicate it out to dozens of rental listing sites with a single click.
Social media is another powerful tool for marketing your rental property. These are platforms where people share every detail of their life and look for new inspiration. Local Facebook groups and Twitter real estate feeds are both good places to start spotlighting your available rental properties to potentially responsive audiences.
You can also purchase social media marketing to appear on feeds or side banners for users who currently seem to be house hunting in your area. Social media is a great way to spread word of mouth advertising about your rental properties.
Of course, you don’t have to be a digital marketing pro to be a good landlord. If you want an easy way to advertise your rental home without spending hours honing digital marketing skills and building PPC strategies online, there’s an easier way.
TurboTenant is the DIY landlord’s one-stop shop for rental property management, and the best way to find great tenants. One of the things we can do at TurboTenant is to manage your rental unit advertisement over multiple platforms as soon as tenant turnover happens.
You create the listing and upload the assets, and we’ll help you do the rest. We even save all the information from your unit after you stop online marketing, to make it easier to start it up again as soon as your rental is vacant. Get started today for free!
Marketing strategies for your rental properties can include putting a For Rent sign in the front yard, spreading word of mouth with realtors and friends and family, and creating an online listing for your property that syndicates to listing websites like Zillow, Apartments.com, Trulia, Hotpad, Zumper, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace.
TurboTenant’s online marketing process is free to use and syndicates to dozens of listing sites. It’s the easiest way to build your custom listing with great photos and an enticing description, and get it in front of prospective tenants fast.
There are hundreds of rental property listing sites out there, and most renters don’t stick to just one when they’re researching their options. As a landlord, it’s a good idea to blast your rental listing across as many sites as you can, and TurboTenant’s online marketing process is free to use and easy to set up.
Marketing your rental property is paramount for finding the best tenants. You don’t want to feel like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when screening prospective renters, and great advertising will increase the overall number of leads that you have interested in your rental unit. No one will know your have a property available for rent unless you tell them, and effective online marketing is essential for maximizing your rental business’s profits.
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