Rental Listings Zillow vs. Facebook vs. Craigslist

[Roy Nash]

I have been using Craigslist forever.  A couple of years ago I had a rental and listed on Zillow and Craigslist with somewhat mixed response from each which I attributed to December as being the listing month.  So this time I did not list on Craigslist at all but used Zillow Rental Manager and Facebook.   The response from both was off the hook.  I could not even keep up with all the interest   Tons of people responded on Facebook but honestly its kind of clunky.  Responses are on Messenger which is a pretty frustrating interface for business to be honest.  Zillow Rental Manager however impressed me quite a bit.  I utilized the integrated application feature which I had never done and I REALLY LIKED that.  So easy so seamless really cut the work so much.  I will for sure do that again next time.  I rented the unit in 1 day.  I would be interested in other suggestions especially if anybody has tried Facebook or Zillow and some others as well.  Zillow Rental Manager just made it so seamless and easy.   Are there even better rental interfaces out there?   Thanks!

[Kyle J.]

@Roy Nash My experience has been similar to yours. Years ago I used to use Craigslist, and quite frankly had good luck with it. Then a period of years went by where I didn't have any vacancies (I rent SFR and my tenants tend to stay a while so thankfully vacancies are fairly rare).

Late last year when I finally had a vacancy come up, I put my normal Craigslist ad up.  However, I also decided to give Zillow a shot since I'd heard some good things about it.  So I put an ad on there too.   The results were quite surprising. 

My Zillow ad produced hundreds of calls, texts, emails from people who were interested. So many that I couldn't keep up, and I just decided to do two open houses that everyone who was interested could come to.  Tons of people showed up to both days, and I had a number of people actually turn in applications (several of which were highly qualified).  Ultimately, I rented the house in just two days to a very qualified couple that has been great ever since. 

On that same property, my Craigslist ad produced exactly ONE inquiry.  It was low quality and didn't even result in that person showing up to the open house.  Oh, and someone on Craigslist also stole my photos and made their own ad offering my rental at a lower price.  So there was that to deal with. 

Then this year, as luck would have it, I happened to have another vacancy which I decided to only list on Zillow.  (I skipped Craigslist entirely because I didn't want to bother with the few, low quality leads or the scammers anymore.)  This time, I had over 1000 views on my Zillow ad, several hundred calls, texts and emails, did two open houses (tons of people again both days), and ended up getting it rented to a very qualified couple who saw it the first day.

So for me, I'm completely sold on Zillow.  I don't use apartments.com because I don't rent out apartments.  (I know they say they also do houses but no one uses it for that in my area.)  And I have read good things about FB marketplace from other users on here.  However, I have no experience with that.  My only issue with Facebook is not everyone has it.  In fact, I don't even have Facebook.  So I think it could be a viable platform, just know that you'd be missing out on the part of the market that doesn't use it.  Everyone has access to Zillow.