What creative things have you done during the Winter Months?

Question

Hey BiggerPockets community! Wanted to find out what creative things you may have done during the winter months to get your place rented out. Here's what I've done —

Location: San Jose, CA

Property Listed: Nov 9, 2016

Property Type: SFR, 3bd/2ba

Initial Listed Price: $3300 (pretty fair given the area and type of property)

Posted on: Craigslist, Postlets (Zillow, Trulia, HotPads), Rentberry, Facebook Groups (every single group that included the words "rental", "San Jose", "Silicon Valley", "Bay Area", or anything else along those lines)

I quickly realized that the $3300 price wasn't attracting anyone, so I lowered it to $3150. I also lowered the security deposit from 2 months to 1.5 months. After another 2 weeks like this, I lowered the price to $3000. I got a lot of interest, but from people that weren't looking to move until 2017.

So, I improvised — after almost a month on the market, I decided to furnish the place and put it up on Airbnb. I spent $1000 to fully furnish it (Before Furnishing, After Furnishing) — $235 on big furniture items (3 beds, 3 mattresses, desk, coffee table, couch, secretary desk, etc.) and $800 on the smaller items (duvet, duvet covers, pillows, lamps, dishes, rugs, coffee maker, etc.). I scoured Craigslist for free items, "moving sales", and estate sales. That's where I found the big furniture items for cheap. I went to Ikea & Target for the smaller items, because I didn't want to buy those used. I posted on Nextdoor for random items (mattress) and was pretty successful in scoring free items that way. I also scoured my own house for extra things I had laying around (TV, towels, coffee mugs, etc.).

So far, we've been fully booked from 12/5 - 1/13. Not a single day of vacancy in between!

Some things I learned along the way:

- Create an Imgur album for your photos. When posting to Craigslist, there's a max limit of 24 photos. I took a lot of photos of the house and realized that Craigslist wasn't doing a good job of giving the look and feel of the house with only 24 photos. So I posted all the photos to an album on Imgur. This way, I could get past the 24 photo limit, AND I could track how many people were viewing my photo.

- Be flexible, but not too flexible. I did lower the price of the house, but I did not lower my expectations for a renter. I still wanted to find a renter that was within my income qualifications, would be able to pay rent on time, didn't have any evictions on their record, etc.

- Improvise, Improvise, Improvise!

So, BiggerPockets Community...what have you done?

Ladan Ballai · Answer

Thanks @Aaron Pfeffer ! I totally went into this experience blind as a first-time landlord AND first-time Airbnb host. So far it's working out, so fingers crossed!

Totally agree that pictures make or break a listing. I know that I personally will "judge a book by its cover" when it comes to rental properties. I'm both a landlord and a renter, and I know that if I see an ad with crappy photos, I won't even bother to contact the landlord.

Aaron Pfeffer · Answer

@Ladan Mahini

Very impressive!  Here in Los Angeles investors are crushing it on AirBnB, often making three times per month what they would have just leasing something standard.  Of course there has been a crackdown in places like Venice and Santa Monica (the hottest markets for nightly rentals), but creative investors are finding ways to keep this going. You can really automate AirBnB with so many other apps (like cleaning services), that it's just not that time consuming with the turnover any more. Really like what you said about pictures making a big difference too.  In fact, there's a great podcast called HOW I BUILT THIS which had the AirBnB creator on once, and he himself noticed that the site was stagnant until he personally flew to New York and offered to take pictures for people who were listing on his site.  Made all the difference in the world, and that's when everything started taking off.  That whole "it's worth a 1000 words" thing...it ain't just a cute saying.  Congrats and thanks for sharing the story.

Ladan Ballai · Answer

@Brandon L. That's what I thought, but we went a month without having anyone fill out an application. A lot of people visited and seemed to love the house, but never filled out an application. Leaving it empty didn't seem like a smart idea, so we decided to Airbnb it until we get into the warmer months.

@Assaf Furman it's $150/night, which is well below market for the area. I purposely did this so that we attract people, which has worked. At the price, we'll be making well over what we would if we were just renting it out on a yearly lease. There's a lot more work involved with Airbnb, but I think it outweighs the vacancy.

Assaf Furman · Answer

How much did you list it on AirBNB for?

Brandon L. · Answer

@Ladan Mahini  Keep the rent slightly below market rate. Your place will rent out fast no matter what month it is. It's amazing how a small amount will have such a significant impact on how fast the property will rent out.