How do you advertise open units?

Question

I've owned my properties for only a few months so I'm learning as I go.  I now have some open units that have been cleaned up with flooring replaced,  etc.  Just a cleanup is needed, so I'm ready to garner interest in them.

Saturday I put a sign out front (3 fourplexes,  same location).  I also put a Craigslist ad up Monday.  So between the 2, I probably have averaged 2-3 calls per day.  I don't know if that's good or bad. Ha

I would obviously prefer more,  so I took a gander at Craigslist as if I were a prospective renter.  I simply searched for the town name in the apartments for rent section.  The problem I saw is that there are managers/owners that have TONS of ads for their single location.  I mean one had 247 ads,  another 167. I know this because I went to the map version of the search.

Now if a renter looks at the map,  there isn't a huge difference as they can weed out the "spamming"  of ads for single addresses.  But if they are looking at the list/thumb/gallery version,  my ad is only a needle in a haystack.

So how do you generate interest in your rentals?

Lisa Troxel · Answer

After using Craigslist and getting disappointing results, I listed my unit up on Zillow and it was rented quickly.

Steve Ko · Answer

It sounds like you are doing everything right.  Craigslist does seem to have a lot of spam and bogus rentals.  Have you tried Apartments.com or Facebook?  Sometimes your town will have a local real estate group on Facebook where you can list real estate for sale or rent.  I have been using these two sights and have had good luck.

Joshua D. · Answer

@Dustin Beam

Sounds like the market is saturated?

One thing that we do that has been amazing is using the local facebook for sale site.  We list our rentals on there and folks tag their friends when they know they are looking for a place. It usually spreads quickly, and it's free.

Jeff Copeland · Answer

Try Zillow Rental Manager - it feeds to Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, and other sites, and it's free!

Sam Leon · Answer

I use Zillow and a bunch of other sites.  I used to use Postlets (now Rental Manager) and loved the syndication feature to many sites.  However over time I noticed the syndicated sites treat syndicated ads as second class citizens.  I would go to those site to see my syndicated ads, and I can see syndicated ads are a total mess.  On a single web page, my ad was totally truncated to like three sentences, and pushed to one side, to make space for a "sponsored ad".  In fact, one of the sponsored ad was also a rental with pictures, and those pictures appearing right next to my ad made it look like those are pictures of my ad.  I went to a few other sites, and it's the same issue to varying degrees.  Basically, the information I put into the Rental Manager was not 100% presented on syndicated ads, may be 30% of it was, and that's being generous.  However, I learned that if I set up an account on those site and create ads directly there, my ad would look much better.  So now I go to each site and paste my ads, instead of using the syndicated feature.

I have never gotten visibility from CL ads, I can't even find my own ad 30 seconds after posting it it's already on the 9th page down.

I would say 75% of my units are rented via Zillow and other sites.  The other 25% is from putting up signs and tenant referrals.

Dustin Beam · Answer

Thanks,  I'll try the other avenues mentioned in this thread.  For the record,  I don't think the rentals I'm speaking about are bogus,  but having 247 ads for one location says to me they are less about getting their ad seen than they are about blocking viewership of "the competition".  Maybe I'm wrong,  but either way it's way over the top IMO.

Dustin Beam · Answer

I'm certainly not the authority on the rental market in my area,  but from what I hear from seasoned investors is that it's strong here.  My prices could be a little high,  but if so not by much I don't believe.  The previous landlord had them rented for $650. I'm trying for $695, but I've made pretty dramatic exterior improvements and the interior is better looking once I clean up (new LVT flooring,  new paint,  etc).

Your Facebook idea is great,  I hadn't even thought of that.!

Dustin Beam · Answer

I will look into that,  thanks for the advice.

How do you advertise open units?

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