Zillow and my new strategy, leaving Cozy completely

[Patrick M.]

I believe Zillow is by far the best application to use in marketing a rental for us smaller guys. My usual practice is to list on both Zillow and Cozy and have people apply through Cozy- go to a showing - if interested after, do the credit and background check. My market has been inundated with demand- through the roof- and as such changes are necessary. (I don't use facebook, craigslist or the dark web)

1. Sure Cozy lists on other sites- but then you are dealing with inquiries coming in through email and it is no where near as centralized as the Zillow Messenger. It is an absolute nightmare with the influx of inquiries to have to deal with a totally separate platform of communication and then makes it a royal pain in the arse to keep track of scheduling.

2.  Zillow allows tenants to use their credit reports and background checks on multiple applications. Before I did not want people to pay for the service if they ultimately didn't want the apartment, but now it is less of a constraint since it can be used throughout. And since Zillow dominates the market, they get their moneys worth.

3. Along those lines- I had a prospective tenants come in who already had the Zillow reports done before I gave them my round-the-bout process, and they were in the position of saying- "we will take it!" Essentially making it game over on the others who would be shown the apartment on later dates/times.

4. Their applications are worlds better- uploaded paystubs!

Right now the demand is just too high. Zillow is the only game in town for me.