I over priced my rental? Can I fix it?

Question

We have finally started our REI journey and have posted our house for rent. It's been up for less than 24 hours and already have 5 people who want to see the house.

Rent estimates online say $900 is the Zestimate etc but we listed for $975. I'm wondering if we should have priced the 2Bd 1 Bth for $1000 instead due to the amount of interest.

Question: Can we change the listed rental price or is it too late?

*We don't close on our new home for another 30 days so we still have some time before a tenant could actually move in.

any input/feedback and stories would be greatly appreciated.   Omaha, Nebraska

Alan Strong · Answer

You could use the lower rent pricing as a teaser style ad. For example, You could offer the $975 for an 18-month agreement, if the client is looking for a shorter term lease you could offer $1050. Hope that helps!

Chris Rodriguez · Answer

Hi Clyde.  "Welcome to the Jungle" :-)

That is a nice house, especially like the kitchen tile, backsplash, and countertop.

I don't know the Bellevue rental market well, maybe @Owen D. can chime in on if your place is at/above/below market.  That said,  yes you can raise it to $1000 and if one of the people who originally reached are are amazing, I'd give it to them at the lower price, don't sweat it.

There is also something to be said to renting slightly below market (ex: $25-50/mo) so you have a nice pool of applicants to choose from.

Schedule all the people to check it out at one time, so you don't burn up your whole Saturday waiting for people who may or may not show up.  Also shows potential applicants that others are interested and that they should have some urgency if they want to live there.

Let me know if I can help with anything else

Brian Egr · Answer

You can change it anytime before a lease is signed, but don't assume because you have people calling about it any of them will actually be qualified to rent from you.

Jennifer T. · Answer

A different type of "teaser" you could offer is that the $975/month already includes the rent discount for early rent payment.

For example, the rent is normally $1,000/month but, if the tenant pays rent one or more days early, they get a $25 discount and the rent is only $975.

Honestly, though, I'd probably just change my ad to $1,000/month and only offer that to the few tenants that may have already seen the lower price.  If you're sure the rental supports $1,000/month.

I've only done the "rental discount" once and it worked out great.  Those tenants loved it and always paid one day early, at least.  But, because they got in the habit of paying early, there were a number of months when I got the rent 1-2 weeks early!

I haven't done it since, not sure why, lol.  But I think it can be a great tool to "gauge" within a small parameter, if I have the rent set right.  And then have some flexibility to tweak it.

Clyde Stackhouse · Answer

@alan_strong

That's a great idea! I would have never thought of that!!

Clyde Stackhouse · Answer

@Owen_D.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/6650725_zpid...

Here is the link. Thanks for all the help!

Owen Dashner · Answer

@Clyde Stackhouse, I may have missed it if you posted it somewhere already, but is there a link to the listing with pics?  And what are the cross streets (if you don't want to share the address)?

Deanna McCormick · Answer

you can change price on your listing as long as you haven't accepted an application.. any showing coming up just let them know the price of apt before you set appointment so no issues,, if they say something about seeing at lower price just say sorry that ad was an error.

I over priced my rental? Can I fix it?

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