Lot of showing request for rental Ppty.Need help.

[Jeyo Punnakottil]

I am new to rental investing.Currently listed my 1st rental Property on zillow and i am getting a ton of showing request.I donot want all these people to walk through the property due to current Omicron/Covid 19 surge in my city.How can i limit it.Should i ask all these intrested candidates to submit a rental application and screen the applications so i can pick the most favorable ones to come a do a walk through??

[Joe Splitrock]

@Jeyo Punnakottil you are going to ask everyone to pay $30-50 for a chance to view your house, with no guarantee that a qualified applicant will be selected? Sounds great for you, but you only have one house to rent. That means if 5 of the 7 people are qualified, four of them paid money and will have no chance to rent your property. You could lose good applicants over this policy.

Do pre-screening to limit your showings. We ask four simple questions:

1. Is your income over 3X rent?

2. Do you have any animals, if so describe breed, weight and age?

3. Is your credit score above minimum approval score of 680?

4. When are you looking to take occupancy? (property is available X date)

You are asking the person to self certify income and credit score. Both of these will be verified when they actually apply, so if someone lies or makes a mistake, you can still reject them later. Move in date is critical because I have found people are often looking to move sooner than my property is available. No point in showing to them. Some people ask more questions, but I feel it is comes off too aggressive to give them too many questions. 

Another option is stack your appointments in an open house fashion, so they are all coming in the same 1-2 hour window. Have your wife take the kids out of the house. You could also do Zoom. I personally like one on one showings, because it gives me a chance to have a conversation with them. You can find out other information like why they are moving, who will be living there, etc.

I have a listing right now. We have had several inquiries but now showing after 2 weeks. I have two highly qualified prospects looking at it this week. I am confident one will rent it. You don't want more showings, you want higher qualified people and less showings.