Tips on How to Find Renters Using Newspaper Advertising
Importance of Headlines
Particularly with newspapers you don’t have a lot of space and it’s expensive, so you’re going to have maybe a headline, one or two bullet points, and then a phone number or website. You don’t have a lot of space so you’ve got to make sure that you do it the right way. Your headline has to be appealing.
Let’s use Louisville as an example. You don’t need to put Louisville in your headline. Everybody knows it’s a Louisville newspaper. You’ve wasted your space. We see that mistake a lot.
Putting irrelevant words in your headlines doesn’t mean too much. Make sure your headlines have relevant words. If it’s a particular neighborhood or section of town, if it’s a well-known area, make sure you put that in there, but not the town.
Be Concise
Be very concise. If you can drive them to your voice mail system or your website, that’s the best way to do it. They would go there and find out if they have some interest. They would see some photos or the video and would kind of screen themselves out and save you a lot of time.
Be Careful of Fair Housing
One thing you’ve got to be careful of is violation of Fair Housing when you advertise. Remember people are going to look at your ad and claim somehow that you’re being in violation of Fair Housing rules. This is a whole subject by itself. We can spend a whole night talking about this. You have to be careful about the words you use.
You can’t use words like church – even if it’s right next to the biggest church in town, or directly across from the biggest church in town. You can’t mention that church. That is a violation.
You can’t mention any sort of family – “It’s a family neighborhood.” If you say the words “family neighborhood” in theory you might be implying that single people aren’t welcome so you’ve got to be careful.
Or vice versa, if you use “apartment designed for singles,” it might be construed as excluding families. Be careful about the words you use. Think about them a little bit.
One of the things I’m going to do on the checklist you’re going to get from me is there are a lot of things in there in terms of words to use and then alternative words to use, particularly if you want to write an ad and you want to use the word fantastic three times.
It will give you fantastic and then give you two or three alternative words to use to try and mix up your words. My template ads are on that checklist. You’re going to get those as part of this program.
Be careful of Fair Housing. If you want HUD offers, in most areas a one day course doesn’t cost much, say $25, where you can take a Fair Housing course. You can learn all about the rules and regulations of Fair Housing. If you’re a serious property management I would do that. Go and spend a Saturday or whatever day they offer that course, take it and learn those rules and regulations and keep yourself out of hot water.
I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free 60 minute audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html.
Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.
Particularly with newspapers you don’t have a lot of space and it’s expensive, so you’re going to have maybe a headline, one or two bullet points, and then a phone number or website. You don’t have a lot of space so you’ve got to make sure that you do it the right way. Your headline has to be appealing.
Let’s use Louisville as an example. You don’t need to put Louisville in your headline. Everybody knows it’s a Louisville newspaper. You’ve wasted your space. We see that mistake a lot.
Putting irrelevant words in your headlines doesn’t mean too much. Make sure your headlines have relevant words. If it’s a particular neighborhood or section of town, if it’s a well-known area, make sure you put that in there, but not the town.
Be Concise
Be very concise. If you can drive them to your voice mail system or your website, that’s the best way to do it. They would go there and find out if they have some interest. They would see some photos or the video and would kind of screen themselves out and save you a lot of time.
Be Careful of Fair Housing
One thing you’ve got to be careful of is violation of Fair Housing when you advertise. Remember people are going to look at your ad and claim somehow that you’re being in violation of Fair Housing rules. This is a whole subject by itself. We can spend a whole night talking about this. You have to be careful about the words you use.
You can’t use words like church – even if it’s right next to the biggest church in town, or directly across from the biggest church in town. You can’t mention that church. That is a violation.
You can’t mention any sort of family – “It’s a family neighborhood.” If you say the words “family neighborhood” in theory you might be implying that single people aren’t welcome so you’ve got to be careful.
Or vice versa, if you use “apartment designed for singles,” it might be construed as excluding families. Be careful about the words you use. Think about them a little bit.
One of the things I’m going to do on the checklist you’re going to get from me is there are a lot of things in there in terms of words to use and then alternative words to use, particularly if you want to write an ad and you want to use the word fantastic three times.
It will give you fantastic and then give you two or three alternative words to use to try and mix up your words. My template ads are on that checklist. You’re going to get those as part of this program.
Be careful of Fair Housing. If you want HUD offers, in most areas a one day course doesn’t cost much, say $25, where you can take a Fair Housing course. You can learn all about the rules and regulations of Fair Housing. If you’re a serious property management I would do that. Go and spend a Saturday or whatever day they offer that course, take it and learn those rules and regulations and keep yourself out of hot water.
I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free 60 minute audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html.
Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.
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