Rental Vacancy Update

          Rental Vacancy Update

                               "Never lose. Either win or learn."

So on my last post, I wrote about different ways to comp rents in your area (https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/11354/81083-4-ways-i-verified-rental-comps-for-my-house-hack). That worked out fine. I have a pretty good understanding about how much I can get my unit rented for. For some reason though, it has been 17 days and I have yet to get my unit rented. On Zillow, the listing has 1,100 views in 17 days. A lot of people have communicated with me about viewing the property. After reviewing my approach to getting the unit filled, I have realized that I have done a couple of mistakes that are potentially holding me back from finding the right tenant. My first mistake was that I wasn’t listing my qualifications and standards on the post. The second mistake I was doing was that my application packet was way too big. The third mistake I did was that I didn’t follow up with people who were interested in the property.

I didn’t post the qualifications and standards on the Zillow and Craigslist post. I realized that half the people that came to see the home would love the unit and suddenly their moods would change once I gave them the qualification standards. I didn’t realize till now that not only was I wasting my time but I was also wasting their time. By posting the qualification standards online with my post, I eliminate the process of people coming to see a unit that they are eligible for. This mistake also put me in an awkward position because one person who wasn’t eligible for the unit really liked it even though it seemed like they couldn’t afford it. The person then tried to convince me to lower they rent amount I am asking for and in return, I was forced to deny their request. No matter how nice I tried to say it, at the end of the day I am still saying no. I now make sure to post my qualifications and standards to hopefully filter out people who aren’t eligible for the property.

Every time someone came to view the property, they would get really excited and impressed with everything they would receive along with the unit but every time I would give someone the packet for the property, their mood would always change. I finally realized that the packet was intimidating. It was about 13 pages. The first two pages were a breakdown of the qualification process. The next 8 pages was the actual application. The last three pages was the list of rules for this unit. After realizing how intimidating that packet looked, I decided to trim it down. I trimmed that application in half by eliminating questions that weren’t necessary. I detached the rules and regulations and decided only show it to the person I accept into the property. I was able to bring the application down to about 5 pages which doesn’t look anywhere as thick as the first one. I am hoping to get a better response rate from the upcoming open house with this change. We shall see though.

I wasn’t following up with people about the open house. This wasn’t as important to me as the other ones. A little bit of me doesn’t even want to do this because people should remember to view my property but of course, that’s my ego talking. My number one goal should be to rent the unit out. Because I view this as a funnel game, I have to get as much eligible people to see the property, so I can then get some applications, to then vet some people, to then offer the unit. Something that I tried this week was to send a friendly reminder to everyone that reached out to me about the property to remind them that the open house will be hosted in a couple of days. This helps people out who have a busy schedule or those people who just simply forgot because life happens. I am hoping this gets more people through the doors which will hopefully get me a tenant.

In conclusion, I made some changes to the way I went about getting a tenant to hopefully speed up the process. I am not desperate because I made sure to give myself a 3 month cushion where all my expenses for the property were paid for but I am looking at the opportunity cost. The longer I wait to get this property stable, the longer I have to wait to get my next property. I am sure I will find a tenant soon but trying to optimize the process is the goal and I will never stop trying to get it as close to perfect as possible. I’ll keep you guys posted!