Finding Tenants

[Account Closed]

Hey everyone,

I just put in an offer on a single family home and this will be my first time buying property as an investor. My plan is to rent out the house and have a property management company manage it. All the numbers look good in terms of ROI, cash flow, etc but the one unknown that is giving me anxiety is how soon will I be able to find tenants after closing? I've talked to the property management company and they said it would definitely rent within 45 days but obviously there are no gurantees. I plan on getting professional pictures done and posting to as many sites as possible...Can you guys let me know what to expect in how long it will take to find tenants?

[Jonathan Makovsky]

@Account Closed I don't know the market you're in, but I imagine that if there are tenants out there, then it's more a function of price (and the condition of your property) vs. time in a vacuum. As an extreme example, I would assume if you advertised rent at $10/month you can fill it in an hour.

So if the premise that price is driving the market, I heard an interesting way to determine the demand for tenants - not sure of the morality of this issue so YMMV:

Put a Craigslist rental post with similar specs to your property and see what response rate you get. If your email is getting jammed with responses, it very likely will fill up quickly, if it's not moving the needle you might need to lower your price point or wait for that tenant to come at your price.