Investor · Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2015 · 20 posts · 5 votes
Hello,
Last Wednesday I posted my house for rent using the Zillow rental manager (Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads) just like I have several times in the past 8 yrs.
The first night I got a lead, but over the next day I didn’t hear anything from any other potential renters.
Turns out Zillow deactivated my listing sometime before noon on Thursday.
I never got an email, call, notification, nothing. I didn’t know until I checked to see why I hadn’t received any leads.
It’s now been 5 days of emailing, webforms, and phone calls, all of which have gone unanswered.
I’m no closer to getting my house rented, the one lead was a no show on Saturday.
Does anyone have any experience getting Zillow to respond? How did you do it?
Anywhere else I should be posting to get traffic? Zillow has worked well for me the past 8 years but...
I’ll try craigslist, but I like to stay off there because I haven’t had much success with people from CL. More than one FU response because of my no smoking & no pets policy.
Any other ideas would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Derek
Rental Property Investor · Red Bank, NJ · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
8y
I would set up an account on Cozy for free. There is plenty on here about them. They will list your rental with realtor.com and others. I would also put it on Craigslist as well. In the short time I have done this I have pulled a tenant from each different platform.
Also some on here swear by Facebook marketplace. No luck for me.
Real Estate Investor · East Brunswick, NJ · Member since 2017 · 94 posts · 71 votes
8y
Facebook groups in your local area may really help. There are always people looking for places to rent and they normally post exactly what they are looking for so you could always DM them the link to your listing.
Fort Collins, CO · Member since 2017 · 273 posts · 91 votes
8y
Hi Derek,
The more sites you're on, the better! Your property needs to be on Craigslist, Facebook, Hotpads, Rent.com, Trulia, Apartments.com, Zillow, etc. The list goes on and on!
As long as your description is detailed, pictures are professional/clean, and your rental is priced fairly, you should begin to get lead calls!
There are free services out there that will take care of all of your marketing for you, for free. Utilize these resources! If you need any recommendations, feel free to reach out! Also, if you'd like some feedback on your property listing, feel free to share that with everyone here at BP or I'm more than happy to take a look at it.
Realtor · Portland, ME · Member since 2015 · 655 posts · 552 votes
8y
Hi Derek,
I would definitely put it on the Facebook Marketplace. I had never used it before and just recently actually found my tenants on there over Zillow, Trulia, MLS, Craigslist, etc... Maximum exposure!
Investor · Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2015 · 20 posts · 5 votes
8y
Thanks everyone,
I have it rented now, it only took about 2.5 weeks after it was finally listed on Zillow/ Trulia/ Hotpads.
All those are owned by Zillow, and it took them a week to finally get back to me and turn my listing back on.
I tried Realtor.com as well but only ever got a few leads from it.
I think CL brings in too many tire kickers who waste my time or never show up to the showing, that's my experience in the past.
However this time I had the same issue with Zillow, I think it was my wording in my email responses.
I had a lot of confirmations that never showed, I guess I made it seem like I was going to be there anyway.
After a week or so of that I changed to responding with a phone number and a couple of days that were available, asking them to call and set up a time. That eliminated the no-shows.