Whoa, Craigslist! More of a Story Than a Question

[Brook W.]

I've had a duplex for the last 10 years and just bought another property. I have to fill one of the apartments in my duplex this summer. For the past ten years I've been able to rely solely on my personal network, emails to friends, Facebook, etc. to fill the space with good tenants. This time it wasn't providing any good leads, so I went to ye olde Craigslist.

WHOA. I was stunned at the number of responses. One thing that really surprised me was that out of many, many emails, only 3 of them asked any questions. The rest of them just said, "I want to see the place." Is this normal? Do they think I am going to set up 100 showings with every Joe Schmo who writes me from Craigslist? Someone is living in that apartment, people!

I just responded to the people who asked questions and left the rest behind. Then I did some phone screening, then showings. Since I have been renting to people I trust up until this point, I didn't have a process set up yet. I decided to go with SmartMove and try it out... I hope it works well. We just have 3 units now but are hoping to buy a four-family this winter, so this is providing the testing ground for our ability to be landlords for more and more buildings...