Does time of year have an impact on listing time for rentals?

Question

Im curious what everyone thinks in regards to listing time for rentals during the summer/ winter/ fall/ spring time frames.

I seem to have much more demand in the summer months, and Im not having much response for a 2/2 condo that I am currently leasing for a Nov. 1 move in.  I was talking to an agent that recently went to a seminar and they had data to support an even demand throughout the year for rental homes, vs. sales (where the spring and summer months tended to do better).

Art Frasik · Answer

Unless they're moving for a job relocation or emergency like their apartment building burnt down, quite frankly, I don't want anybody who wants to move during the winter, because it's indicative of poor planning.

If they don't plan well, how are they planning to pay the rent? Who in their right mind moves in cold weather with snow on the ground?

Colleen F. · Answer

Yes,  in most regions it matters and the larger the unit the more it seems to matter.  It is hard to get  tenants in multi -bedroom units in the northeast in the winter.  Rent is also higher if you have a unit free in the summer/spring.    I  had a heck of a time getting a 4 bedroom full in February.  Lots of lookers but the moving is tough at that time of year.

Kimberly H. · Answer

@Matt Pieper

Hi! I am one suburb over from you and handle our company rentals in the Northwest suburbs. SFRs.

I will give you an example to answer your question. Every property we have rented out before a month ago (that story to follow) was listed May through July 1 timeframe. Found a tenant meeting our criteria on the second or third app after maybe 2 weeks for all of those. This year got we got something listed August 1st and just got the lease signed *yesterday* after dropping the price in $50 or $25 increments over August and 8 applications (not including a million other strongly interested inquiries that didn't get to the application stage). Plus the house was just fully painted and recarpeted and showed great.

I knew it would be harder in August but I didn't think it would be *that* much harder. In fact, we rented it for $100 mo less than what we rented it for last July!!

Going forward we are not letting leases expire beyond June 30th. Long story short, we didn't get possession of this unit until mid-July and it took til Aug1st to get it relisted since we had to repaint and recarpet. There were lucky to get it done that fast. Now, we did lose 10 days trying to get $50/mo more than what we got for it last year since comps said we could, but those comps were from just a month or two before and that made all the difference.

I was thinking that since these were SFRs, and school starts end of August, anyone that wanted to move that needed a SFR with 3 beds and 2 baths already did. I do open houses twice a week and we didn't get anyone with school age kids like we usually do.  Given yours is a 2/2 condo I am not so sure now.  Where is your condo?

Colleen F. · Answer

I have to say this people from Zillow are just bogus.  I list through postlets and if  someone responds from Zillow I contact them and there is no answer, disconnected, emails unanswered.  I get most answers from craigslist.  I don't know about people you get back to and they just don't respond. This is especially true this time of year.

Kimberly H. · Answer

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention Craigslist, I do use that.  I agree a lot of interest comes from Craigsilst but they are not the best quality.   Never tried rentals.com, maybe I will next time. I do use Postlets as well.

Matt Pieper · Answer

Ive been successful with using Craigslist, Postlets (they list on several different websites- Trulia, ZIllow, etc), Rentals.com

Craigslist gets me the most responses, Id say in general the quality of responses is higher from the others tho.

Jason Miller · Answer

Time of year has a huge impact on my Superior/Duluth rentals, less so on my CO and MO rentals.  Winter does slow those down but not nearly as much.  Makes a great time to put in offers for new properties though.  Also great for hiring contractors in need of work.  The best tip I have seen is to always schedule your leases to come up in the May time frame.  14 month leases, 18 month leases, whatever it takes.

Kimberly H. · Answer

@Matt Pieper

When potential tenants call, I ask how they found the listing. The majority are Trulia, Hotpads, and Zillow. Some from the yard sign. Occasionally from Realtor.com. I also list it in MLS and have realtors show, about 20% of the time they find someone faster than I do doing to rental open houses twice a week.

How about you?

Matt Pieper · Answer

Thanks for the insight everyone.

@Kimberly H.  - this condo is in Palatine. I can completely see where you are coming from with SFRs, and it would make sense that much of the tenant pool for a SFR would be planning around the school year.  We have a SFR coming up this fall.. waiting to see how that one will play out for us.

Roy N. · Answer

It completely depends on your market(s) and the locales/neighbourhoods within those markets.

As a general rule-of-thumb around here, May - August are the months when families move - kids are out of school, so it is easier.

We have several properties in Universityville and they tend to rent-up for May and September.

Holidays aside, mid-winter in most of Canada is not a good time to be moving and we work hard not to have units come vacant between November and April.  However, we have a couple of student properties which rent by the room - target clientele is predominately international students - and have absolutely no problem filling vacancies at these properties in winter ... particularly the start of winter/spring term in January, which is about the time some folks decide they do not really like their roommates who party all the time and are looking for a new place to hang their hat.

Does time of year have an impact on listing time for rentals?

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