Scheduling Rental Property Showings for SFH - How much time?

Question

Hello BP!

I just listed my first rental property. So far so good. 8 Inquiries so far and I want to do showings tomorrow... How long do I schedule these showings for?  At 30 minutes each I am already spending a half day there.  Is 20 minutes enough time?

How do you guys schedule showings for single family home rentals?

Thanks!

Matt Leonard · Answer

@Scott Jensen

In my experience half the people who scheduled will not even show up and you'll have wasted a whole day.  I would schedule them open house style, one on a weeknight and one on a weekend day.   This will reduce the amount of time you need to sit around, and hopefully many people show up at the same time to create an urgency and competition. There's no reason that people need to have separate scheduled walk-throughs.

Ned J. · Answer

Don't schedule individual showing....do the showing from say 1-3 PM...... prospective tenants can show up anytime during those hours.

Benefits......

You don't have to deal with a bunch of "no shows" and late people...there will be plenty...and some will just show up without calling beforehand. No wasted time when people don't show or are late etc etc

Having multiple groups there at the same time ramps up the "competition" factor....the people see 3 other groups looking around and the competition juices start to flow....people want what other people want

You can address the same questions and topics to multiple people at the same time without having to do the same sales pitch a dozen times

Unless logistically you really need to do individual showing, I would do a more "open house" format....way easier and less wasted time

Ned J. · Answer

I try to do as little work as possible before they actually show up and put in an application.

I post my ad with ALL the info, qualifications and the open house days and times...do it on Zillow, Truilia, Craigslist etc etc... then when the calls and emails flood in, I don't answer the phone.... I reply to the call with a canned text and email etc with basically ALL the same info as in the ad..... ALL the info is in the AD!!!! If you have other questions I'm more than happy to answer them when you actually show up at the unit. Until then the calls are a HUGE waste of time...answering the same questions over and over and over....when the answers are in the AD!!! ALL my criteria are in the AD....

Maybe 20% of the inquires will actually show up.....and some show up without contacting me beforehand...

Don't waste your time personally answering every phone call and waiting at the unit for people to show up for a "scheduled" appointment.....it will only frustrate and tick you off

Dick Rosen · Answer

Schedule them all at the same time, this does 2 things. Limits your time wasted on no shows and it puts a bit of urgency on the serious tenants to hurry up and submit their application.

Ray Harrell · Answer

Nope, don't call anyone until after they've completed the application and you've vetted and selected them. If 10 day they are coming, 4 will actually show up, and 2 may be qualified and seriously interested.

Nicole A. · Answer

As at least 3 other people suggested, I would also suggest you do open-house style showings where you pick one or two days a week during a 2-3 hour timespan. Less stressful for you and I think you'll like it better.

Frank Chin · Answer

Instead of scheduling individual showings, just do an open house for a few hours. When you do individual showings, time slots are all over the place and often half the people don't even show up. So I'll say I'll be there from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and bring along some reading materials. Then I let people linger as long as hey like, and with open houses, people see a crowd, and if they really want the place, it'll create competition. With individual showings you get none of that.

Frank Chin · Answer

I was following this thread to see if you have any luck with applicants on line. For me, even as a former IT guy, I still do it somewhat the old fashion way. I list it on Craigslist, Zillow and Trulia, and usually when it's first listed, at this time of the year, between phone, email, and text, I get 40 to 50 inquiries, from that 20-30 showing up on the 1st open house, and from that, 5 or more applications.

I give paper applications to people who show up, and the serious ones bring their W2's, tax returns, bank statements. I eyeball what they have and help them through the application.

Now, I find people a little leery of going on line and give info to someone they never met. With high demand for housing out here, they can easily go broke paying application fee for 10 different places lets say. I don't charge application fees, and for running credit checks. With this, I usually manage to snag a tenant from my first open house, and process the application in a day or two. With SFH renting for $2,700/month and up, I rather get another months rent, than a few dollars in application fees.

I had several applicants over the years, that submitted full info, and got turned down after processing. I remember in one case, a girl was distraught, not in not getting the apartment, but that I have all the info on her, and demanded her original application back. The problem with this is the credit checking service came and check out my office, part of their audit procedure, and required I keep all info on people I pulled credit on. So I gave the girl her original papers and kept a copy for my files, just in case.

As was mentioned, the key is to establish person to person rapport, and doing everything on line first doesn't do that for most people. On line is okay for buying toys on Amazon, not for checking out an apartment.

Scott Jensen · Answer

Update

Thanks again everyone for the input!  Here's how it went.

After listing the property I had roughly 20 inquiries within 24 hours.  After reading this I decided on doing 2 open houses that Saturday. 8:30 to 10:30 and 4:30 to 6.  (Not the ideal times, I had a funeral in the middle of the day.)

During the first open house I had 3 people there all at roughly 8:30. Each set seemed interested in an application. I had each of them sign in so I could track it.  (Later I had 1 more show up to the morning open house. )  Nobody showed up at all for the afternoon session.

The Big Mistake -  OK, being a millennial I thought lets do this all electronically (I use Tenant Cloud)... So when people want to apply I direct them to the link online, enter all of their information, and pay a $40 fee...sounds great.  But its not.  Everyone was trying to apply and they got to the screen to pay the $40 and they had to verify their bank account, WHICH TAKES 1-2 BUSINESS DAYS!  At my Saturday open house my 3 potential renters couldn't finish the application process until Monday or maybe even Wednesday...

The Big Lesson: Online is great and everything, but it is simple and easy to accept payment of a check when someone hands it to you.  I think I will still have prospective renters fill out the application online, but process them as soon as I receive a check.

It's Monday afternoon and I haven't seen an application in my Tenant Cloud account.  I will be calling the prospects tonight or tomorrow to see if they are still having trouble with the payment.

Tanya F. · Answer

We do appointments every 15 minutes, but we ask for confirmation the day before or the morning of showings. We have doubled up on 15 min appts in the schedule. We always have a couple of noshows, but generally not many. (gives us a chance to rest!) We have two of us doing showings, so even though the appts are 15 min apart, the prospective tenants often stay for 30 min and get to know both of us a bit...

Scheduling Rental Property Showings for SFH - How much time?

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