Tenant Screening question

[Eric Meyer]

This is my first time having to advertise my rental. I have it posted on Craigslist, Zillow which also posts it to Hotpad and Trulia, and I have it posted on Facebook Marketplace. I have had a lot of interest it, in just two days. I did an open house today with only 3 people showing up. Now I let calls go to voicemail and call back when I’m ready and able to talk. No problem there. But what I’m having issues with is the Facebook messages and emails. I tried at first to answer all the messages but it seems like maybe 10% of people message me back. Now for the emails, all I get is I’m interest and their phone number. I listed in my postings to call and my number. Should I just focus my attention on the people that actually call and the occasional email that asks questions? And just disregard all those messages? I’m beginning to feel like if they are serious, they will call. Any advice would be great. My rental is in a C class neighborhood.

[Cameron Norfleet]

@Eric Meyer I develop a webpage that's specific to the apartment. It answers every question that potential renters usually ask me on the phone such as rent amount, security deposit, what's included/not included, parking info, credit requirements, gas/oil/electric heat etc etc etc. This saves me A LOT of time and frustration. I also take a video of the property, post it to YouTube, and embed the video on the webpage. This saves me time from people scheduling to see the place only to find that they don't like the size of the closets, bedrooms or whatever. I send the link to all interested parties and tell them to call/text/email me back if they're still interested.

Another tool I use to save a ton of time is Textexpander. This is a tool that allows you to prewrite messages, then you can call up that message later using just a few keystrokes and send it to multiple people. I have a video on how I use it for tenant screening on YouTube https://youtu.be/E0mnWDyLbZ8

Group showings is also a great idea. I try to never schedule just 1 person for a showing at a time. This way if 1 or 2 prospects don't show up, you'll still have others that will.

Hope that helps