Open house vs individual showings for rentals

[Jenny Bayless]

Hi BP We’ve entered almost our second full year of self managing our properties, and by far, placing the right tenant in our properties is the most stressful part of self-managing in my opinion. We live an hour each way, 2 hours round trip from all of our our rental properties. In terms of general management, this does not pose an issue as we have a great team of local contractors for repairs, coordinating administrative activities with our tenants can be done remotely, and we are close enough to have face time with our tenants if needed. However, one issue we continually run into, are showings of the property to potential tenants (we aren’t comfortable allowing for self showings... just yet). When we were first starting off, we would arrange for a series of individual showings, but due to an overwhelming number of no shows, we have transitioned to open houses in order to preserve our time (driving two hours for a no show is nothing short of infuriating!). I do want to point out, that demand is crazy high in our market, so I understand if the market softens, we may need to cater to individual schedules out of necessity in the future. Some inquiries from potential tenants do provide an air of entitled attitudes (I.e we as landlords need to cater to their schedules, as if our own schedules are irrelevant), in which my response is to say “sorry you can’t make the open house, good luck to you in your search”. However, some seem to genuinely be unable to make the open house which makes me wonder if we are shutting off access to potentially good tenants. My question is: should we consider individualized showings? If so, how do we ensure the tenants have skin in the game (and not waste our time and gas)- should we ask them to apply first before scheduling an individual showing? That may seem like a scam to some without seeing the house and seeing us in person. Thanks in advance, I am definitely looking for some great ideas from more experienced (or creative) investors!

[Anthony Wick]

@Jennifer B. My first thought is, are you having any problems getting good applicants? If not, then why change anything? I’ve read a lot of people, myself included, use a phone prescreening to avoid the high number of no shows. Why do you want to move here, when, who will be living here, are you willing to go through a background check, do you meet our criteria of ...... that sort of thing. I tried open house here for rentals. Just didn’t work. Good luck!!