Any FREE online rental listing options???

Question

Does anyone have a free or very inexpensive option to list rentals online?  Zillow has been my go to for years and now that they are charging 9.99 a WEEK, I need to find another option.

Lydia Bryce · Answer

Thank you all for responding.  I e used Zillow for years and I too have been happy with it. I would be happy to pay $9.99 a month to list a property on Zillow, but a week?  Overpriced in my opinion.  FYI, I posted my property on FB marketplace and had over a dozen responses in less than one hour.  Two have told me they want it without even seeing it.  I’ve taken 4 applications and set the listing to pending. I believe I will have it rented in 24 hours.  Amazing!

Kyle J. · Answer

@Lydia Bryce  I've used a variety of platforms before (i.e. Zillow, Craigslist, yard signs, etc) and have rented properties with all of them.  Hands down though, Zillow now performs the best.  Up until just recently, it was free to use in my state.  Unfortunately, they just recently announced that they'll now be charging the $9.99/week in my state too.  I'm of the opinion that you get what you pay though, so I'll continue using them.

Zillow has consistently brought me hundreds of interested potential applicants each time I've listed a vacant property, and it hasn't taken me more than 2 days to rent a property using their platform.  Plus, they also push their ads out to their partner platforms (Hotpads and Trulia) so you get that extra exposure.  So I won't mind spending the ten bucks to rent a house to a quality tenant.

But if it's just free you're looking for, Craigslist is still free.  You just have to navigate through all the scammers and spammers that site has become inundated with (at least in my area).  And then there's other free sites, like Apartment (dot com), but if you're like me and only rent out houses those may not be the best sites either because sites like that tend to focus more on apartments than houses (some cities in my area actually have zero houses listed on them).

I've also heard good things about FB Marketplace.  However, just realize that not everyone has FB (I don't even have it), so there will always be a segment of the rental pool that you're missing if that's the only place you advertise.

Ultimately, you're goal should be to get as many quality applicants to choose from so you can select the best tenant for your property, even if it costs you a few bucks.  In the grand scheme of things, it's a relatively small price to pay (in my opinion).

Just my two cents.

John Underwood · Answer

I use FB market place and it is awesome. I then advertise on Zillow for one week to allow for applications.

1 week is more than I need to re-rent a vacant property. I had 3 people turn in applications before seeing property. One of these ended up becoming my new tenant.