How are people finding tenants?

[Cory Melious]

I've been using Facebook marketplace to list my apartments for the past 5 years. I only have 3 units and it's been pretty reliable to find good tenants.

Post pandemic....that approach is a disaster. I've posted my place but the responses are bananas. The people responding have little to no credit, or are vastly under qualified with the income requirements. Many of them aren't tech literate enough to do the typical application (I usually have them fill out a pdf and we go over it together). 

It's almost like they don't read the ad, or are simply clicking the automatic "Is this still available" button. I've gotten 3500 clicks and nearly 200 inquiries. I have resorted to copy and pasting a response to their initial "is this still available" question. Probably 50% of those never get returned to me. It's a pretty easy way to weed through the non-interested.

Many of them are looking for an in person tour, yet they are not interested enough in responding to the chat conversation THEY INITIATE! 

I use apartments.com for tenant payments, but I don't know how they are for tenant screenings or applications.

Has anyone used apartments.com or zillow for tenant applications and screenings? My understanding is that they pay for the application process. I'd like to pre screen tenants before they pay to ensure they aren't wasting their money.

[Sam Ohanesian]

I've had the most success using Zillow. I believe the person applying can pay a fee and have unlimited applications they can submit for a limited amount of time, so you don't really need to worry about them wasting their money on the application if you don't chose them.