Trying to find my first tenant... need help

[Rohan J.]

Hi there,

I'm a California (newbie) landlord, and I've been fortunate enough that both of the places I bought a while ago already had good tenants living in them. However, last week my tenant in Placentia, CA (SoCal) put in her 30-day notice, so now for the first time ever, I need to find a new tenant.

I'd prefer not to hire a property management firm to find my next tenant, as 1) I want to learn how to find a good tenant, 2) this is a nice town-home in a good community, and 3) I don't have a ton of properties, and this would be a fairly small project.

But there are still a few questions I don't know the answer to:

a) The only way I can think of to find tenants is to post on Craigslist. Where else can I post/search to find new tenants? Basically is there anything else I can do in just a few weeks notice to increase # of applicants?

b) My tenant works pretty hard and is not home that often, but I will need to take photos of the insides and show people the place. How does that process work? Do I inform her when I'll be coming to take photos, or do I have to cooperate with her schedule? I want to be a good landlord and not make her feel like we're invading her privacy, but at the same time, I don't want to wait forever every time just to show an applicant the apartment.

As you all know, California is very pro-tenant ... and as a newbie landlord, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to take pictures/show the apartment while she's living there. Any advice on things I should be thinking of would be greatly appreciated :)