Filling your rental properties with quality tenants is essential to remaining successful as a property owner or landlord. Maybe if you’re really lucky, a great tenant will just walk through your door. But more often than not, it takes work on your end to find tenants who will be a good fit for your rental units.
When marketing for prospective tenants, there are some strategies you can use to effectively advertise vacancies and fill your units. While a good old fashioned sign in the window or stick in the yard might work, today most of our tenants are sourced from various online platforms.
Where to list your rental properties online
There are a few big players in the internet listing service space. If you have a home or apartment for rent, one of the heaviest-hitters is Zillow. At RL Property Management, more than 60 percent of our inquiries are sourced through Zillow, so it’s important to maintain a presence on the site.
To get the most out of an internet listing service site, you might also consider paying for a partner account with them so that your properties receive prominence and priority on the website when potential renters are searching for places to live.
If you have a larger apartment home, another good place to list is on apartments.com. They also have paid accounts available, and their website is a good source for capturing apartment traffic.
Where to avoid listing your rental properties online
It’s also worth mentioning some places you should steer clear of. One of them is Craigslist. While it used to be a good source for new tenant leads, unfortunately those days have passed.
Similarly, Facebook Marketplace is an option; however, it can be hit-or-miss. There has been a lot of fraudulent activity on Marketplace, particularly in the Columbus market. Moreover, Facebook generally wants to see those listings tied to an individual person. They won’t allow a business to post a Facebook Marketplace listing.
Bottom line: Go where your prospective tenants are
To fill tenant vacancies you have to go where your customers are, and increasingly that is on sites like Zillow.
If you use a landlord or property management software, most of them will automatically push out your listings to sites like Zillow, Trulia, apartments.com, and about 20 or so other rental listing websites.
For questions about filling rental vacancies and screening tenants, give us a call at 614-725-3059.
