In person rental showings a thing of the past or still valuable?

Question

In this post pandemic world where virtual meetings and showings have become much more standard in everyone's lives. Is it possible or is anyone out there not doing any in person showings?

There's great resources for prospects to tour an apartment 3D doll house tours (Matterport), professional photos, videos walkthroughs of the exact unit, floorplans. We are asked more and more for Virtual tours and or someone shows up and is on facetime the full showing. Why should we still take them through the units? This seems like a waste of my and my staff's time, Gas at the time of writing this is crazy high. The type of properties we manage are 50 units and under, spaced all over multiple cities. We fill each unit and don't have a model unit like some large complexes. In addition to the savings, we will have happier tenants who don't have prospects coming through their home in the middle of their lease in my market sometime as early as 8 months before the current lease is up. Or on the flip side we have units that the current tenant is a slob and it impossible to get them to clean up or the XXX images around ect. and we lose prospect as we walk them through the unit because no matter how much you promise them that it will be professionally cleaned and fully maintenanced they are already gone.

This could help Reduce a large cost that we incurred to get them leased up.

Do enough people still want / need an in person showing to close the deal that its not worth the reduction in expense ?

Perhaps a good hybrid would be showing only to people who have applied or even more deep processed and approved applicants , anyone doing this?

Theresa Harris · Answer

For long term rentals, I wouldn't rent to a person I hadn't met.

Justin Moy · Answer

The in person tour is as much for you as it is for the prospective renter. You want to meet them in my opinion. Check them out as a person, make sure you don't get any negative gut feelings about them, and also check the cleanliness of their car (don't make this obvious, but walk them to their car or meet them there).

Tracy Streich · Answer

@Nathan Faselt I think you are asking the right questions. We have done only self showings for the past 7 years. Great success and Vacancy rate hovers around 2% on 1000 doors. You will always have some vacancy so I am ok with this number. The savings is through the roof. Allows us to keep our cost low for our 3rd party owners as well. Never have a problem with theft or squatters. We use Tenant Turner for this and love the software. They upload info including their drivers license to get a one time code. Glad we had this in place prior to Covid. We never skipped a beat

Bruce Woodruff · Answer

@Theresa Harris^^^^I would use virtual tours to let the prospective tenant (after they pass your initial scrutiny) see if the until is a good fit, then have them meet you for an in-person walkthrough.....

Nathan Gesner · Answer

Yes, most renters want to physically walk through the property before renting. I've had great success with 360 images and video, but it's still not the same as walking through at your own pace, opening cabinets, sensing the natural light, look over the fence at the neighbor's yard, listening for traffic or barking dogs, driving the neighborhood, etc.

Tracy Streich · Answer

@Nathan Faselt We only show vacant rent ready units. Too much of a problem with current tenants cleaning up and showing while they are there. Yes we have electronic locks on all units. You can use lock boxes that generate the code with a key inside or digital locks. If you are only leasing a few doors per year the lock boxes are very affordable.

Patrick Drury · Answer

@Nathan FaseltI would highly recommend you use the 3D tours to filter down the candidates that are interested in the property to weed out people that are going to waste your time and send the rental criteria you are looking for so they know what to expect. From there, I would still show them the unit in person and if they like it have them apply. Having tenants apply and rent a place they have never seen is not a good idea. You will run into problems of them moving in and complaining what they received is not what they expected or xyz. If they see it beforehand in person there is no grey area or room for miscommunication and that can save you from having a tenant that will complain about everything since it's not what they were expecting. Also, side note try, and stack rental showings together. I used to do a bit of leasing for a property management company. I would only do showings at that specific property once a day and would stack all of them together. It saves you from visiting the same property, multiple times a day. If there is a ton of interest, do an open house concept.

Drew Sygit · Answer

@Nathan Faselt suggest you test out several options to see what your market responds best to.

Richard F. · Answer

Aloha,For average rentals, I only provide good quality photos in all online ads, and never will rent to someone that has not physically viewed the interior of the unit. A large percentage of potential tenants really have no concept of size, whether stated as "1500 Square Feet" or viewed virtually. If you sign them up online and leave a key in a lockbox for them, when they actually step in they find it is too small or they didn't realize it was so close to neighbors, or...whatever. We have people every week wanting to rent something so when they actually arrive on island, they will have a place. Usually they have no knowledge of different areas, traffic flows to/from their work location, etc. They are just trying to save hotel expenses. Now they either want to back out of the deal, or you are stuck with unhappy tenants. Even if you get to keep a deposit, is it really worth the aggravation? Is that how you want to make your money? I would much rather rent to someone that "loves" the place the minute they walk in, spends some time mentally placing their furnishings at the showing, and will be a good long term tenant.

Erin Dreher · Answer

It depends on the market you are in. What type of house/neighborhood your in. We may do them for a property inside a gated community. It seems like even though the people that tour seem great they will not all pass our underwriting department. I feel like there may a good deal of time wasted on meeting people for tours and then they don't qualify. In places like Denver, CO or Nashville, TN where the market seems to be all upper end this is probably a necessity. I think video tours and good marketing pictures are the way to go!