Placing a Tenant - Total Time

[Cody Weiss]

Hi All,

This might be a naive question given the caliber of landlords on here but here go. How long does it usually take  you to go from empty rental unit to having a renter and first months rent in the bank? 

Thanks!

[Mitch Deminski]

In this market, the short answer is within 3 weeks.

In my opinion, 3 things determine the time frame of renting the property.

1. Location - If its next to the railroad tracks or in a war zone, you can't do anything about it so lets look at the next 2 items that you have control over.

2. Condition - If you've made the correct improvements (i.e. color choices, replace the hard surfaces as needed) this property will shine on the internet...pictures don't lie!  

3. Price - At my property management company,  are always pushing the rents.  If your not getting over 75 queries within the first 72 hours after posting, start lowering the price by $25 - $50.  You need to find out where the market is at any given time.  Investors get hung up in the monthly rent vs how much they make year over year.  If you have a property sitting empty because your trying to get an additional $25, your not looking at the big picture.  Do the math on what your revenue looks like if its sits empty for another month and you'll find your better off renting at a slightly lower rent not to mention the bad things that can happen to an empty property!

Whats nice is you have control over items 2 & 3 and remember if your not willing to do one of them, then you better do the other.  You just need to pivot fast.  

As an interesting side note,  it takes our leasing agents 5 - 18 hours of labor to rent a property.  Being a property management company, our in-depth paperwork and due diligence takes longer than someone who is self managing.   We are looking into technology that will reduce our leasing labor by 2/3 from our calculations...stay tuned!

Hope this helps....good luck!