How long do you wait before dropping rent on listing?

Question

It's been around 10 days since I listed my property; had around 5 showing, but no applications. It was listed at $4000/month, so I dropped it to $3900/month today. How long do you normally wait before you drop the rent?

Nathan Gesner · Answer

I will typically drop the price after two weeks if there's no applications.

Is $100 drop enough? I would have dropped it 5% ($200). Every week it sits empty you are losing $1,000 plus utilities. You'll need $100 a month for ten months just to break even.

Hyun Jin Kwon · Answer

Oh my gosh, thank you soooo much for this!! I'm not using a realtor, so I was in desperate need to feedback.

1. Paint: Yes, I am repainting the house soon.

2. Backyard: Good point, I will retake the pictures. It actually doesn't look like that right now as the pictures were taken in the winter season. Same with the front yard, there aren't any dead plants right now.

3. Utilities are usually no included for SFHs here, so I will go ahead and remove it.

4. Huh I see, this is my first time being a landlord, so I thought rent specials and discounts for multi-year leases were normal as I always went for them as rentals. Thanks for the suggestion!

I didn't comment on everything you said, but once again, thank you so much! I wish I could vote your post 100 times. I'll take some time tidying up the place and taking better pictures :)

Greg M. · Answer

Looks like there are 8 listings for rent in that area. Only one is a comp to yours, listed at $3700.  The one listed at $2600 looks awful. One of the worst listings I've seen. Shows it's been on the market for almost a year. The one priced higher than yours, at $4700, shows being listed for over a year. I question if either of these are still available.

Comparing your listing to the $3700: Theirs looks newish, very well maintained (driveway the exception), probably newer windows, with a lush green grass and nice landscaping. Yours has multiple different brick colors, peeling paint, older looking windows, dead plants, a half dead lawn, a walkway that is broken and slightly uneven, and an entry pad that is sloping rather significantly.  Your kitchen looks nicer and more updated, but you don't showcase it in the pictures. Their backyard says cozy, safe, and well maintained - a place I'd want to use. Yours says uneven, uncared for, dirty, and needs work - a place I'd avoid. Flat out, your place looks unloved. You took care of the inside and ignored the outside. Children play outside. Also, your room pictures make every room look small. I don't know what it is, but every room picture makes me fell like I have to duck down.

Since the selling point of this place is the school district, you need to make your place child friendly. You need to clean up the place so it looks like a place people can envision living in with their children.

Front of house: Broken and uneven walkway and sloping entry pad says unsafe for my child. It's not a cheap fix, but it is a safety issue. Remove the dead plants. The multiple colors of bricks look awful. You can stain bricks to match. More ambitions would be to stucco it. At the very least I'd do the front of the house to make it look uniform.

Backyard: Looks dingy. Put the damn hose away before taking a picture. Clean up the yard. What is that old furniture in the picture? The fence looks super dirty in the last pic. Spend two hours power washing it and it goes from a dirty fence to fresh looking wood.

The paint is peeling some places outside. You don't have a lot of painted areas, so consider repainting the place.

Spend a few dollars on landscaping. Fix the lawn. Many people here will say not to do this as they'll just die. I feel landscaping can turn a house into a home. It can also help get the place rented faster.

Label your pictures. I have no idea what some of the rooms are.

As for price, if the other unit is truly a $3700 place and includes landscape maintenance, then yours is currently a $2900 place.

Fix the wording in your listing. If the school is the selling point, lead with that "Located in the Wilmette school district, this charming...". You have "no utilities included". Are utilities usually included? If not, remove this. Why are you offering a discount on first months rent is they sign before May 31st? You look desperate. Why are you offering a discount for a multi-year lease? Longer leases only lock the landlord into the contract. Renters can get out of the contract at any time. Consider bundling landscaping and snow removal into the lease. Two less things for a family to worry about.

I also wouldn't call your place a Cape Cod style home. Nothing about it says Cape Cod style to me.

And never forget, the market doesn't care what your mortgage payment it. No one will pay higher rent just because your mortgage payment is high. This unit may negative cash flow for a while.

Hyun Jin Kwon · Answer

The unit is nice compared to comps; some of them haven't been renovated at all so the interior is just bad. I have newer appliances (washer/dryer, furnace/ac 2021 and all the other appliances are less than 8 years old) and the kitchen was renovated last year. Yes, I admit I priced it a little aggressively because it's in good condition and I want decent tenants.

Screening criteria isn't that strict as I just want a decent tenant that passes the background check but I haven't gotten any applications so far. Gotcha, so I guess I'll wait for a little while longer and consider dropping the rent more if I didn't get and applications. Thanks!

Hyun Jin Kwon · Answer

I have the listing currently on Zillow, Apartments.com, FB Marketplace, Avail - so pretty much everywhere. So far, 85% of my showings came from Zillow.

Hyun Jin Kwon · Answer

I guess it was 50/50. Some of them really liked it but it didn't work out because of the style of my home (cape cod style but they had kids in highschool so the room didn't work out). Some of them were interested, but the rent was too high.

Hyun Jin Kwon · Answer

Yes, that is my question as well. There are some, not many, SFHs in my area (Glenview, IL / Wilmette, IL). Some of them are really underpriced in my opinion (2000-2500). This won't even cover my mortgage and that would be bad. The inside is renovated which is why I priced it at the high end side, but not sure how many people can afford it. It's in a good school district and most of my showing were to those parents who had kids going to those schools.

Paul De Luca · Answer

@Hyun Jin Kwon

How does the unit compare to the comps? Be honest if you think you may have priced it a little aggressively. Also is your screening criteria too strict? I would drop the price after about two weeks if I didn't get any applications but I wouldn't be too worried yet.

Julie Hartman · Answer

We will also generally give it a couple of weeks though I can't remember the last time we had to do that. Make sure you have plenty of nice photos of well-lit rooms and a good write-up for your ads. You don't say where you are advertising but Zillow is usually a good place to start and they will syndicate to other sites so you'll have decent exposure. Without knowing the specifics of your property, you are most likely overpriced. Hopefully, you did the comps before pricing it. Good luck.

Scott E. · Answer

What is the feedback from those 10 showings?

How long do you wait before dropping rent on listing?

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