Primary Home turned Rental- HELP

[Erin Jolly]

Hi everyone, 

We recently moved from our first home and want to turn our previous South Louisville residence (B class) into a rental. Its 3bdrm/1bath and we have it listed at $1,000/mo. I've read many real estate books and listened to the BP podcast among many others. We currently have our house on zillow, trullia, rent.com, facebook, craigslist, and apartments.org since March. (Right before Covid-19, we actually took it off around mid-March for two weeks because of the uncertainty but put it back on in early April.) We get many hits- 5+ inquiries per day and have done about 4-5 showings/week for the past month but NO applicants. We are doing this through a lockbox/code system.

 Admittedly, the house is in good shape but not pristine. It has original windows, front patio needs pressure washing, and the landscape is simply grass up to the house. Our next steps are to pressure wash and landscape, but are we barking up the wrong tree? We've thought about knocking down the price to $950 but other houses in that price range are in MUCH worse shape. Would it be worth it to send out a survey to those who have looked? Maybe offer an incentive (gift card raffle) to those who complete the survey? Are we just being impatient? Has Covid-19 impacted turnover?

We have money to sit on this thing forever, but obviously that's not in the business plan. We are considering using a property manager but that's not our preference as we want to learn this market and continue to grow our portfolio. We plan on purchasing another property within the next three years. 

Any advice is appreciated!

[Clay Smith]

We manage in Louisville and our average fill time is 10 days or less (2-15 max days). 

We have free rental analysis reports on our websites to help you set your price right.

Multifamily homes have a slightly longer fill time but overall we have not experienced a lull in placements during this crisis.

Have you asked for feedback? Is there anything off-putting or mislabeled in the listing (small bedroom, pass through bedroom)? Are you trying to rent as a multiple roomate living situation? Are you trying to rent without appliances? Is you deposit more than one month's rent? Are you allowing pets?