@David Ingram there is a lot more that goes into the science of property rental than just price alone. Namely, there is 2 major factors, price and TERMS. And you havn't detailed your terms.
The pet term you detailed I'd call novice. I'd put that at 20lbs. Most small dogs fall into the range of between 10-20lbs.
Next, what minimum requirements to lease are you putting out there? Are you saying 740+ fico? Are you saying 540? It matters, a lot.
What length of lease terms? Who pays what utility?
Your unit size is microscopic, telling yourself "many are just like this" is only making excuses for yourself, small is small, and that's tiny.
Next, do you know your target market? I'd say no, because of this post saying in short don't know what's going on or what to do, which all comes from not knowing ones target market. My "average" time to lease is 17 days. A very big reason for this, I know my target market's with pin-point precision.
Being such a tiny place I'd say your competing with apartments, and looking at apartment type persons. With either very young or no kids. And few kids to boot. The yard space could lend to "like an apartment but with room and convenience of privacy". So, what are the competitor apartments priced at?
I never EVER offer any free-rent, EVER! It's a horrible conditioning to lend a tenant, and i don't want to attract tenants who would be incentivized by any free-rents. No thanks. And doing on average ~50 new tenant placements per yr, myself personally, I'd say I know what I am talking about.
Than how your marketing could be with impact. I see so many doing absolute trash listings, with these photos of a wall, a cabinet, a door way. I mean seriously, has nobody ever heard of wide angel before? People want to see the room, not a wall in a room. And than video, should always have a walk through video tour, a decent one, not some shaky running around spinny spinny thing. YT is free to use, super easy to do.
I follow a very simple 4 step process:
- Have clear, informative, directive marketing message. What it is, what it takes, who we'll take, how to get it.
- Have very clear informative marketing material. Clear room pics, walk-thru video tour hosted online done to a manner where a person does in-person walk through and says "yup, exactly what I saw in video".
- A clear, step-by-step process for filtering and pre-screening interested persons. I won't detail mine here because that's a short book itself, long story short I use a scheduling system, video system and CRM with auto features to nurture and direct prospects. At any given day I am having conversations with 200+ prospects, while actually only talking with 3/4.
- Know your market. This is for users and asset. Everything is with intelligent design. My credit scores, rents, even listing with above market rents, what photos come first, it's all with intelligent design that is far FAR deeper than "this 1 system told me this rent price so I will regurgitate that out there".
In every rental I list I know who I am targeting, why, why they'd want my unit, who my competitors are, what they are doing, why. I get to the point of targeting a divorcing, male tenant with 2-3 kids, age 32-45, who makes between __ and ___, who currently live in ___ radius. Yes, I get that focused in knowing my target market. And it comes from knowing who your asset best connects with as a housing solution, that also works for us as a tenant solution. Sometimes I may only want a 1-2yr tenant, a divorcee is great for that. Other times I want a "forever" tenant, well a trash credit is good for that.
Each target market has their own uniqueness about them, which lends strategy of how to target them, market to them etc..
I say get focused, or hire someone who is. And strategic with everything.
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