Rental Property Investor · Atlanta, GA · Member since 2016 · 325 posts · 253 votes
I received an email today from Zillow saying that they will be charging $9.99 per week to list FOR RENT properties in Georgia starting March 2, 2020. This will also cover the listing on HotPads and Trulia. With multiple properties, this can add up quickly. Has anyone found any alternative to Zillow? Any free listing services?
@Al Pat how much is Zillow charging renters to search for properties for rent? To my knowledge that is always going to be free. So why do you think people will start searching someplace else?
Do you want to advertise where people are looking or where it costs less?
If your property rents for even $600 a month, the vacancy is costing you $20 a day!
Like most everything else in business, this is a math problem. You are concerned about $10 a week, when you are losing over $20 a day.
We list on Zillow and Apartments.com Zillow is not charging in our area yet. I am sure there are other aternatives-people do use Craigslist for example.
@Al Pat I would consider listing rentals on FMLS. Listing on FMLS also creates a record of comps for the actual rent. Currently, FMLS charges a flat fee of $15 for rents up to $1,499/M. Listings will show up on zillow, hotpads, trulia etc. This is cheaper than $9.99/week.
I noticed that the fees had migrated to GA. I have had pretty good response from Facebook marketplace ads. Less activity from Craigslist. (except fake ads trying to rent my properties out for $300 less than my posting.) Not sure if I would pay the fee. If I have a vacancy I'll try other venues first. I think this will have a greater impact on ad posting than they anticipate. It will still be a large revenue stream for them. We don't have that many turnovers...
Interesting. I had zillow want 9.99 a month ago, but then the request for payment disappeared. I thought maybe zillow decided it was a dumb idea to charge for rental listings.
They've been rolling this fee structure out state by state for a while now. They say the first ad is free but I'm not sure if that's a one time deal or if you only have "one" at any one time there's no charge. I rarely have two properties available at a time.
This rolled out in Denver over this past summer. After trying several workarounds, we finally bit the bullet and paid up. Though I still use Facebook and Craigslist and some other syndicate sites, my highest response has always come from Zillow and it's affiliates so we couldn't just ignore those avenues. That's where people are looking. Maybe in your area, it's different?
From what I can tell, just the first one is free and subsequent listings cost - at least that's been my experience. I am a property manager in Denver and haven't gotten a freebie since they rolled it out over the summer.
If your tenant base includes students, you can often just advertise on the college website under off-campus student housing. It was always free when I used them.
@Al Pat - Facebook Marketplace is where I get almost all of my leads. I also use realtor.com, apartments.com, rent.com, and cozy.co. Though... Zillow definitely does have some great leads.
@John Teachout First ad is free only one time, subsequently after that you pay a fee. So it’s like intro price of free and then if you repost the same listing, there is a fee.
@Al Pat how much is Zillow charging renters to search for properties for rent? To my knowledge that is always going to be free. So why do you think people will start searching someplace else?
Do you want to advertise where people are looking or where it costs less?
If your property rents for even $600 a month, the vacancy is costing you $20 a day!
Like most everything else in business, this is a math problem. You are concerned about $10 a week, when you are losing over $20 a day.
As far as people searching, many from my experience search multiple property listing sources as evidenced by me getting multiple inquiries on the same property from the same person. (Trulie, Zillow, Facebook, CL, etc)
So I'm unsure as to whether NOT posting on Zillow would actually extend the time to lease the property. I recently leased two sfr in the FL panhandle and between the two got over 300 inquiries. The two accepted applications both came from Facebook.
Turbotenant.com hands down! I believe BP even promotes this as well as smartmove for background checks. Best part is it’s free and posts to Zillow among several other sites!
FMLS is one of the two MLS services that covers the Atlanta market. Rental listings on our MLS get syndicated to Zillow and it’s affiliated websites. Ask a real estate agent local to your market.
I use Zumper, which syndicates to Facebook among several others. I'm averaging 5 leads from Zumper for every 1 I get from Zillow/Trulia/HotPads. For now, I use both (and also apartments.com, which is free). If they roll out charges here, I'll probably switch over 100%.
I don't mind paying for value, but right now the 100% free site is providing more value the one that's starting to demand payment. If Zillow charges too much, there is enough competition out there now to start a downward pressure on pricing structures. It may not go back to free, but maybe something like $10 for a whole month. That would still be a massive revenue source if implemented nation wide.
Turbotenant.com hands down! I believe BP even promotes this as well as smartmove for background checks. Best part is it’s free and posts to Zillow among several other sites!
I do wonder what will happen with services that syndicate to Zillow. Has anyone in a market where Zillow is charging, tried using a service that syndicates to Zillow as a way around the charges?
I used the Tellus App, Cozy, and Facebook marketplace to list my property. There was no charge and it covered most of the major platforms, including Zillow. Not sure if that would change though in your location. I got the most leads from Tellus, but FB marketplace was more quality leads in my area.