When to post rental on Zillow?

[Dana R.]

Do you post your rental on Zillow right away or do you wait?

From my previous experience, the most activity for views and inqueries happen in the first few days after you post a listing for rent on Zillow. But, then the longer your rentals sits unleased, those views and inqueries drops.

This probably occurs, I'm assuming, because Zillow lists the rentals by newness. Its like the Google effect, where people look at the first few things google pull and most people never even look on the second page. So, it really helps if your rental is one of the newest rentals available on Zillow and it hurts if the listing is older as it gets pushed back to the 2nd page. With more and more apartments listing their rentals on Zillow, I expect this effect to be even pronounced and for your listing to get lost in the shuffle. 

My rental will be available next year on Jan 1. I'm trying to decide when I should post that listing, either now or after January. 

If I post it now, it'll be new and therefore get views and responses for the next week or two. 

But, after that, with Christmas and all that, I expect the responses to really quiet down for the rest of December until January.  By that point, my listing will be old and won't show up at the top of Zillow. 

Or, should I wait to post it on January on Zillow so its at the top when there's going to be more people looking for a rental in January than December.