Using Zillow for rental advertisement, my experience.

[Clinton Davis]

I decided to give Zillow a try on getting a new tenant for one of my rentals and it worked out great.  I had over 40 emails in 2 days and 5 applications filled out and that's the best part....the prospect can apply through zillow and they pay the $39 and Zillow does the criminal history report and credit history via 3rd parties and all you need to do is review it....it's really convenient.  The best part is it's all free for the landlord.  Wow, I sound like a commercial...hahaha....

anyway, Just wanted to let other landlords out there know how well it worked for me....I had a deposit within a couple days.  My previous methods were the Newspaper ads (back over 10yrs ago) and craigslist, craigslist works too but you get a lot of fluff with it.....with zillow the applicants have already paid the fee so you know they are serious....anyway, best of luck to everyone.....thanks for your time.

[Bob Woelfel]

@Clinton Davis Yes we use Zillow all the time for placing tenants and it's been a great tool for us.  I will say though that it does depend on the market and location of the property.  We have a small multi-family building in a more rural small town just outside the KC metro and we have not had nearly the traction with zillow that we get with our other properties.  As it turns out all of our new tenants there have come from placing a sign in front of the building.  I don't typically do that in single family properties but for this multifamily it's worked really well.  Trial and error.