What are the best way to market a long-term rental?

Question

Hello,

What are the best ways to market a long-term rental you just bought? I'm a newbie real estate investor, and my husband and I are planning to buy our first property this year or next. Renting for all my independent life now, I've noticed rentals I've found were on certain platforms being advertised, like craigslist, apartments.com, Facebook marketplace, and landlords posting to their personal social media accounts.

However, I can't imagine these avenues being the only advertising methods, when you have something like vacancy to fill. I think you would need to diversify as much as possible to get the word out. Are there other platforms and strategies to advertise long-term rentals? Do I need to be a certified real estate agent in order to advertise my rental on the MLS, like Zillow?

Are there any marketing resources in the BiggerPockets community that I can also look at? Thanks in advance!

Paul Novak · Answer

We have had much success in our area by creating a facebook business page for our rentals.  We have had this in place since we started, then using apartments.com and Zillow.  We have a work instruction we have made for our business which has definitely helped my wife and I become more consistent in our approach which has also improved our results.  Just recently we have also added Stessa's posting process.  This is a free property management software.  If you are interested in our work instruction direct message me and I will share with you the SOP's and templates we have created.

Drew Sygit · Answer

@Audrey Sommer Zillow has replaced Craigslist as the #1 platform tenants use to find new homes. Especially, when you add the other companies Zillow owns - Hotpads and Trulia.

FB Marketplace is almost a waste of time in our Metro Detroit market as 95+% of inquires we never hear back from. Other markets may be better.

Melanie Thomas · Answer

Zillow is a great tool to get your listings out there however, I would not utilize Zillow applications.

Audrey Sommer · Answer

Hi Nicholas,

if I invest out of state, I will probably have a property management company manage the property for me. If I invest in state, like house hack, I'd probably do it myself. I haven't made any final decisions yet.

But it's always nice to know how it works, so regardless, you can ask the right questions, and hold your team accountable!

Thanks again,

Chloe Brown · Answer

@Audrey Sommer as many of the folks above have mentioned, Zillow is the biggest platform that I see the majority of our leads come in on. Nathan mentioned using a syndication site to push your listing to multiple sites at one time which is also something that I recommend in order to expose your property to as many sites as possible.Some things to consider to maximize the efficiency and giving a perspective resident a great experience from the beginning to having a scheduling link available in your description for specific days and times that you can show the property so that you can capture your leads wanting to tour the property without them having to wait for a response from you and scheduling a one off time.

I would recommend investigating in having professional photography taken if you are leasing in a market that has a lot of competition since your photos will have your property stand out and drive traffic.Good luck!

Drew Sygit · Answer

@Audrey Sommer it will be challenging to match what a PMC can do.

Example: we post to around 30 websites via syndications via two software programs we pay for and also have a marketing team that manually enters a few.

The Zillow Group is probably the easiest for a landlord to use. FB Marketplace is also fairly easy to use, but depending on your location it can be a waste of time.

Audrey Sommer · Answer

Thanks for all the information everyone! That really clears things up, and I'll keep that in mind as I get closer to this part of real estate investing.

Lily Wong · Answer

@Audrey Sommer I've found that Zillow Rental Manager has worked best for me. You just need to sign up & pay. They also offer a free trial period.  I get the most responses and active users from their platform which posts on zillow, hotpads & trulia all at the same time. I would recommend that you screen your tenants and have them complete a background check with a company of your choosing and not just accepting Zillows in house background check that some of the tenants already have. (I've noticed that zillows in house background check is not great & not reliable based on my previous experiences with them)

Alan Asriants · Answer

You don't need an agent to rent out your apartment, just like you don't need an agent to sell your home.

The process of selling is a bit more complicated and is a much larger transaction that can have a lot of nuances depending on the deal. Plus you typically should list on MLS to get best traction for your listing.

Rentals are a bit different. Typically in my area, I see a lot of rental properties being listed outside of the MLS and not even offered there. The reason being is that usually the commission offered for tenants agent is low and tenants are usually unrepresented, unlike buyers when purchasing a property.

So you'll see a lot of rentals being advertised on the exact platforms mentioned in this group, and what you have said as well. The rule of thumb is this one selling anything: get it out to as many people as possible. Put it out across all platforms. You can do this part yourself. Once you draft it on zillow, use the same description, pictures, etc. And post to as many sites as possible. Also, see what other rental listings look like in your neighborhood. Are they all being posted with vertical pictures taken on an Iphone 6, or are they all done with professional photgraphy. Your images matter. You might not need professional pics for your market, but it is importnant to get nice quality pictures with good lighting. You want your space to be attractive.

Those are all things you can do yourself. What an agent with experience can help you with is the underwriting process of an applicant and drafting a lease. This is something that can be a little bit confusing for some when dealing with their first property. It's not a bad idea to communicate with a solid agent who has their own investment properties to help you with this process. Filtering the right, applicant and drafting a solid lease is the most important part of the process.

There are plenty of books out there that give you advice and tips on what to do and how to draft leases but if you're still uncomfortable, then having an agent by your side for the first rental, might not be a bad idea.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

The best method is to syndicate to many platforms. You can use a free tool like TenantCloud. Mark your property available for rent and it gets pushed out to several sites. For $30 they will push it out to another six websites for a month.

For someone with only 1-2 rentals, you could create accounts at all these websites and manually enter your listing.

What are the best way to market a long-term rental?

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