Duplex Unit Not Renting After 6 Months

[Timothy Nako]

I have a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom duplex in Houston, located in a higher socioeconomic demographic area. When I bought the property it was fully occupied for $2,500 a door. One side moved out and the unit has been vacant for 6 months. 

We hired an agent to get the property leased after not getting results at the 3-month vacancy mark. 

Some feedback that the agent has from showings and her insight:

-2 bedrooms /1 bathroom upstairs & 1 bathroom downstairs is not an ideal situation for roommates or a family.

-No garage for luxury vehicles. Only a shared carport on the property.

-On a busy street. 

-Carpet upstairs.

-Shared pool.

The listing looks great and the unit is renovated. It even has a washer/dryer that comes with the unit. When buying the property we saw that the previous owner had a hard time renting the property but we thought it was due to the listed price. They listed starting at $2,700 a door then reduced it to $2600 a month later, then rented both within a week of each other in July after a reduction to $2,500 a unit. In addition to the $2,500 the tenants pay a monthly pool maintenance fees, landscaping fee, and split the water bill with the other unit.

The unit has now been listed at $2,300 and is still not rented. Any insight or similar experiences anyone could share would be helpful. I think maybe this is an ideal property for STR, but our family has only done LTR for years. I've heard that any home/unit will and can rent, which we believed until now. Only feedback the agent has given us is that we needed to clean the backyard, which was a whole project and that was at the beginning of us hiring her 3 months ago. Everything inside the unit is newly renovated.