Rental properties, how would you approach the listing and showing?

Question

Calling attention for Landlord and Realtors, how would you approached the listing the rental properties? I have just finished rennovating my duplex in central New Jersey. And have listed for a week now, only have two showings. As I am anxious to rent them out and wanted to know why there is so limited showing. Below are some of my observations and I wanted to get your opinion, and how would you have handled this to attract more showings and speed up the process.

1) I tried to look up my rental property online ( my realtor listed this for), I am not able to find this property as an active rental on Zillow, trulia and apartment rental websites, I know it got listed on MLS. Does my agent put too much limit on where to advertise the rental property?

2) My agent has gotten approached by quite a number of potential tenants, but instead of showing them the property first. She sends application form and background check forms for them to fill out before they even get to see the property. Her rational is that she is not comfortable about showing the property without knowing much about the candidates.

The more I think about this approach, the more I think there is a mismatch here. Number 1 proberly limited potential quality tenants finding this active listing, number 2 deters potential good tenants because of the strict process in place before showing.

I started to wonder if this is a mis match of the project and the agent. She is a good residential agent and excels in buying and selling. But she was not extremely comfortable about taking on this rental project from the very beginning. A few things included not willing to use my contract template but realtor standard template, and told me she does not do much rental, and the time she spent on rental is just as much on buy & sell but much less commission. I also realzied she lives a little far from the rental property and possibly becasue of all of these reasons that she went with the approach 1 &2 as I mentioned above?

Look forward to hearing your perspective and feedback.

Bjorn Ahlblad · Answer

My goal is qualified applicants, not showings. So I won't show to anyone who is not pre-qualified. They need to earn the right to see the apartment or duplex. This has worked well for me. Do whatever you think is right for you.

Corby Goade · Answer

Your realtor might be doing a great job or they might be lazy, honestly no way to tell. Each MLS syndicates diffrently to different sites, so you might ask them what sites their MLS syndicates to. Zillow is weird also- our MLS and personal website syndicate to Zillow, but sometimes if you search the address it will bring up a listing from 10 years ago. Who knows why.

I can tell you from 20+ years experience doing this, showing a rental to anyone who asks is a HUGE waste of time. I know its stressful for you as an owner, but your agent presumably has experience pre screening and vetting potential tenants, so you either need to trust their expertise or let them go.

If you show the property to anyone with a pulse, your showings will go great and on the way out the door, every prospective tenant will ask "is it cool if we are unemployed? Do you rent to convicted murderers? Our credit score is 7, but that's becasue of medical bills." etc. There has to be some sort of vetting before you show a property.

Theresa Harris · Answer

I agree with the others. She should let them know the rental requirements before showing to avoid tire kickers wasting her time, but completing a full application will deter quite a few people (because people don't want to do anything extra).

For advertizing, find out what is the best couple of rental platforms to use for your area (because they do differ by city) and make sure she posts the ads there. You could always have a friend contact her to say they are interested in looking at the place and see what response they get.

Kevin P. · Answer

I'm a landlord in the Central Jersey area too. I only use Zillow and it usually gets at least 50 responses. I always pre-qualified people when they call me or email me. I'll pre-qualify them for income and usually try to get to know a little bit more about why they're moving. I always make sure that they have references from a previous landlord before I show. I tried to reduce the number of people I'm going to show it to. My time is valuable just like yours. I've never asked an agent to lease my apartment for me so I'm not sure what that's like but sometimes I'll get a call from a realtor that wants to show it for their client. I always let them know that I'm not going to be paying any commission. I'd rather they didn't show it anyway because like you said they do need to use their own rental lease agreement for their agency. It just makes things more complicated. If they want to apply now I use the Zillow application for their background check and the tenant can keep using that background check with other landlords for 30 days for about $30. That way I don't feel guilty about having them to pay an application fee where they may be unlikely to get accepted.

Matthew Irish-Jones · Answer

@Yangyang Jin

We market the heck out of our rentals to drive demand and get people in units quickly. Our system allows for open house style showings at the tenants convenience. Once one tenant scheduled a showing more can pile on. All of our systems for showings are

Automated and we make it easy to apply and easy to show.

If Your Realtor wants applications before doing a showing they should also be offering an open house style showing. No one wants to spend $20 applying for something they have not seen. You cannot

Have your cake and eat it to.

We rent 20+ units a month of all different price points. We have to strike a balance between accessibility and efficiency. Property marketing units and getting the most people in ASAP has been what as worked best for us.

Victor Soni · Answer

@Yangyang Jin

I only use Zillow. We have used then for the past three years and there are plenty of leads. I too only show the property once a lead has filled out an application.

On my listing, it clearly states, we only show properties to qualified applicants.

BTW, you can download the Zillow Rental Manager App and can completely handle all of your contacts/leads/applications and conversations from there.Hope this helps..Victor

Josh Young · Answer

@Yangyang Jin all of the concerns you listed are valid, you need to either take this rental listing over yourself or find a professional property manager to help you. Also, buy an air freshener (glade plug-in).

Carlos Silva · Answer

In my experience, people want to see it before filling out the application.

Colleen F. · Answer

@Yangyang Jin They don't have to do the whole application pre-showing just some questions. I would find someone who does rentals or do it yourself.

Rivers Fike · Answer

I would try and find an agent who specializes in leasing residential rentals or a property management company. You could also list it yourself as an alternative.

This being said two showings in the first week isn’t bad. I would want to understand why they didn’t want to lease after the showings.

Rental properties, how would you approach the listing and showing?

Rental properties, how would you approach the listing and showing?

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