How to handle high demand on a rental

Question

How would you recommend handling a lot of demand on a rental property? I put a listing up and after 24 hours I have five visits scheduled. How would you guys recommend I handle the process?

My thought was to give tenants priority based on visits. The first application will get first priority, and if they don't qualify after the background/credit check I will run a background/credit check on the second application, and so on. That way I am not wasting their money with background checks unless they are next in line. I plan to use SmartMove, so the tenants can pay for their background check themselves.

Dawn Anastasi · Answer

I don't consider 5 viewings to be "high demand".  Generally I schedule an "open house" type showing and if I have 10 people come, that's pretty good.  Not everyone is going to qualify.  You only need one, but you don't know if that one is going to be #1, #3, or #10.

Benjamin Timmins · Answer

If you are getting really high demand for it, you might have the rent priced too low.

David Stefanovic · Answer

I would do a pre-screening over the phone with questions first to make sure before you show the rental to them that they meet all of your main requirements. If they meet your requirements, then you can schedule a showing. Through my experience, if you don't pre-screen, you end up showing the rental to a number of people that do not fit your requirements. For example, if you don't allow pets in your rental, then you want to ask that question over the phone and not waste your time showing the rental to people who have pets.

Jeff Gates · Answer

Might be helpful: I found this one today. Free account,

https://youcanbook.me/pricing/

Dillon Bell · Answer

@Paul Smythe

Just my opinions:

-Don't raise the rent. You pre-determined what the market rent for the home was. It sounds like you are comfortable with that rental amount. High rental demand = higher chance of finding the perfect tenant. Use the numbers game to your advantage for tenant quality, not extra $.

-Don't select a tenant based on when they visited the home. Talk with the potential tenants. In a 5 minute conversation you can learn a lot about a person and whether their situation is a good fit for your property. Make sure you get a great tenant that you can communicate with easily. Also, there are certainly people that make better tenants than others. For example, my dad was a contractor. Do you think he ever called his landlord to snake a drain or fix a leaky faucet?

-Find someone that is going to treat your home like it is theirs. (not easy) We've gone as far as inspecting their current residence.

Sarah Ziehr · Answer

Collect the applications and review the credit/income. Go back to your top 2-3 applicants and ask for highest and best. This is pretty common. Either they will offer a 2 year lease or a higher rental amount.

Joe Splitrock · Answer

@Paul Smythewe have many situations were we do five showings quickly and nobody works out. That alone doesn't say your price is too low. If you get applications from all five and they are all very qualified, that may indicate your price is too low. What I have done in the past when I have appointments like that is tell each applicant that I have other showings in the next day or two and that we will take multiple applications and consider the best. We will review the applications and select the best. Only that person gets their credit run. The reason we do this is it is common for us to get several calls and the showings don't always match the order the calls came in. First come first serve sounds great, but it is better to have flexibility to pick the strongest applicant. We only use this method if all applicants are within a day or two of each other. We try to run showings back to back for the same day. When someone applies we tell them there are multiple applicants and we will get back to them within 24 ours with instructions on how to proceed. Either we tell them it is on to the credit check or tell them they are X number in line.

Lynn McGeein · Answer

I have a standard email reply listing my criteria and that if they feel they are qualified,  they can request an appointment between certain hours on x day, usually Saturday and bring attached application or fill one out on-site.  I'll schedule many same-day appointments and have applications and a copy of the lease and HOA rules so they can read through them before turning in an application

I am curious how others handle order of acceptance, as I no longer do first-in, first-out.  I will collect all day, then give preference to those seeking longer-term leases (I don't tell them that, just first line is to check box if applying for 1- or 2-year lease term and also a check box as part of Other Info section for how long they plan to stay, 1 year, 2 years, 3-5 years, 5+ years, same area where I ask things like Do you smoke outside?  Never  Sometimes  Always)

Mike F. · Answer

5 Pre-qualified potential tenants means 10x more than 5 unqualified potential tenants. If you don't take pets and the first 3 that walk in have them and you spend your time with them only to eventually find this out I'd rather those 3 never showed up. You know what I mean there vern? Qualified prospects are what you hopefully are setting appointments with otherwise it's just a bunch of shuffling about for no results or more commonly referred to as - 'practice'.

How to handle high demand on a rental

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