Prospects and Their Report of Local Rental Offerings

[Bill Bell]

Often, when I do a showing for one of my vacant properties, I usually ask prospects what they have seen thus far in their local rental search.  Quite often they report many "dumps" and thus was wondering if in the landlording business (especially small timers like myself or perhaps even larger mgmt groups) many focus on the bare minimum for a rental offering?  Interestingly, in my area, which is a summer beach resort, there are abundantly more high quality weekly mega vacation rental properties (primarily idle 8 months out of the year) as compared to standard SF 3/4 BR year-round or even summer monthly rental properties.  Thus, demand is quite high for longer term rentals as the local year round population grows, and/or people moved from being homeowners to renters per recent economic changes over the past few years.  However, supply for these longer term rentals is thin.  Thus, perhaps the reason for the reports of "dumps" is due to lack of supply given demand, and leverage of this ratio?  I speak to many seasonal small business owners in the area as well, and they often report difficulty in obtaining seasonal staff primarily due to available housing in the area.  Ironically, many of the past seasonal housing offerings have been demoed and replaced with the large weekly rentals.  

Thus, on scenario where year around housing appears thin while demand is high, drivers such as higher rental rates or lower quality standards, it comes back to those discussions with prospects and what they experience in their local rental search.  Not so much questions in this thread, but rather thoughts/discussion.