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How to find tenants for your rental properties

As a landlord with a vacant property, each passing day without a tenant can really become frustrating for you because an empty property is a rental loss and financially sucks the juices out of you. But the fact is that landlords need tenants and the tenants need landlords. With effective strategies, you can speed up filling the vacancies at your property and save yourself the sense of loss that prevails each day in your life.

In this post, I have compiled a set of recommendations designed to help you find tenants and keep your properties booked and busy!

 

Put Up a ‘For Rent’ Sign:

This may sound like the layman’s solution (which it is) but it is still an effective method to find potential renters for your property. Putting up a sign outside of your property can spread the word in ways you might not have imagined. A person who learns through these signs that a certain property is available in a particular neighborhood can spread the word to their peers. If you are lucky, a tenant might themselves notice this sign and approach you instantly. But make sure that you comply with the sign placement policy of the area in order to avoid any legal tangling.

 

Advertise on Websites:

 

The internet is perhaps the most effective tool for you. With a bit of research, you can find the most popular real estate website in your region. Make sure your advertisement includes a proper description of the place and mention any preferences for a particular kind of tenant (e.g. male or female etc.)

The platform where you choose to push your advertisement is important. As a landlord, you might have a large set of websites to choose from. Some popular sites include: Rentals.com, Redfin.com, Realtor.com, or Zillow. But depending on your region, another website might be attracting more traffic from that zone so make sure you research that thoroughly and come up with an educated decision.

 

Create your own online portfolio:

 

This method is most effective when you have multiple properties available. Instead of repeating the same advertising process for each one of your properties, you can hire a professional web developer to create a customized website for you that offers potential tenants a convenient way of looking at all your properties and selecting the one that best suits their needs.

 

Social Media:

 

The power of social media cannot be undermined. In the past decade, billions of people have flocked to popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Social media platforms offer the perfect opportunity for you as a landlord to showcase your property to potential tenants. You can add pictures, locations or other miscellaneous information about your property and the search engine of these popular social media sites will ensure that whenever a user inputs the matching property description, they reach you. So make sure you include contact details and the location of the property.

 

The Newspaper:

 

You may ask yourself what is the probability that a tenant will read an advertisement about your property in the newspaper. But keep in mind that the same principle about traffic applies to newspapers as well. As long as a significant chunk of people devotes their eyeballs to the newspaper, you have a fair chance of finding an ideal suitor for your property. Remember, the end goal of all these tips is to make sure that the right word about your property reaches the right tenant. And newspaper advertisements stand as good a chance of serving your needs as any other platform.

There are certain housekeeping issues you should keep in mind before posting your advertisement in the newspapers. Make sure you post your advertisement in the Sunday newspaper when the readership traffic is the highest. You only have a few lines to include in your advertisement so make sure you select a smart description. Lastly, choose a newspaper that is popular in your area.

 

Word of Mouth:

 

While this may seem like the most basic way of attracting tenants, it works effectively. Ask all your peers to advertise your vacant property to as many people as possible. Make sure that you can rely on these people to do your bidding. They can be your close relatives like your siblings or your cousin or your co-workers that you have a close connection with.

One person can convey your bid to ten other people and like an inverted pyramid, the word about your property can spread like wildfire. You can even add an incentive for those that are able to successfully find tenants.

 

Respond Promptly:

 

A tenant most of the times looks for properties with a sense of urgency. If you do not reply instantly, you could lose a potential deal with the tenant. Make sure you set up an all-time-available communication method to pick up calls or to reply to messages or emails from potential tenants. Hire an assistant if you have multiple properties and don’t have the time to deal with it all by yourself. You can even use Google Voice service to set up a pseudo-anonymous phone number for you that redirects calls to your original number. You would want to do this if you do not want to share your personal number with any and everyone.

 

Conclusion:

We hope that by following these suggestions you are able to find the right tenants faster. While dealing with the tenant, make sure that they have a credible credit history, have agreed to comply with the terms and conditions and are generally straight-forward and honest. The process can be daunting but with the right amount of energy put into the process, you can earn yourself a comfortable deal that will put your worries to rest for months, even years, to come.

 

How can you find the right tenants and vet them successfully? We will cover this in a coming post!

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