Questions on upcoming open house

[Maria G.]

Hello,

I have worked on finding a new tenant for my rental during the past 3 weeks (after getting notice). Two years ago it rented very easily with just one open house. These year's ad drew a lot of attention. I had a first phase to screen applicants before the viewing date (tomorrow). I only got 3 (a bad, and two good), as most people wanted to see the unit before being screened. Yesterday, I opened a second phase to start providing slots to those who provided answers to 7 simple questions (total income, credit score, etc.). But I see that is not enough, so I am going to need an actual "open house." That makes me nervous because of posts I see here about risks of having property stolen from the current tenants. I plan to minimize it by letting only one or two families in and having the rest outside (another agent will be at the door). Any suggestions? Here are also some questions:

- Do you provide a phone number as well as the address when you have an open house? I am just a private owner, so I am afraid of people using my personal number.

- Do you advertise an open house to Craigslist as well? I currently have the listing ad on CL, zillow, and zumper. Again, concerned with privacy.

- Do you ask them to give you a check deposit to hold it if they like it at the open house? I prefer not to because at that point, I won't yet have them screened.

Thanks!

[Pancham G.]

@Maria G.

Good questions. I have gone through these thoughts myself years ago so its normal.  I have found the following that worked for me to answer your questions:
1) We usually get an idea on who is coming by having people fill up the google form. Once we have a good list, then we conduct and open house. We contact the people who have shown interest and then ask if they can make it. If the number of people are a lot, then we stagger them at the 15-20 minutes intervals.  It is a valid concern of the property stolen. You have to treat your tenant and their stuff with care. What we have done is that we are usually two to three people showing the apt during the open house. One person is responsible to showing only 1 at a time. Rest of the people wait outside. 

2) Yes, we do provide the address and google voice number to only the people who show interest. Address you have to share as people try to map it to see if they like the location.

3) We never advertise on Craigslist about the open house. It depends on how popular ur area is. We get 50 entries in 24 hours period as soon as we put it out. So, the demand is very high.

4) No, we do not take the deposit to hold until we have screened them. We just tell them that we will send a link to the 3rd party application who will do the credit check etc. Once it clears, we talk further.

Hope this helps.