All Forum Posts by: Yan Yan

Wellllll all those folks wanting to find tenants without using an  agent, I suggest that you have not found a good one.  Hands down, an owner will always do a better job assessing the tenants when they meet them, but a large part of the value proposition is weeding out the wackos, the scammers and the flakes from the rental process. This takes time.  In Central NJ, our average rental is about $1800 to $2000 per month, and we split that with two agents.  So the  agent is typically getting a 60-70% split of $1000 to process a rental, and the average time a rental takes on the listing side is about 4 hours of work, and on the tenant side maybe 6 hours.  so if the average is 5 hours, the listing or tenant's agent is making $600 for 5 hours of work, pretax, and maybe $400 after tax and fees.  BUT in our area an owner might have to show the unit on 6-8 separate days, for 1 hour per visit (assuming they are local) to find one good tenant, then prepare forms for another hour or two, then meet the code compliance officer for an inspection (1 hour to 3 hours waiting time) so on average we are talking about 12 hours to find a tenant on the owner's part.  Maybe a lot more. So the owner saves $100- 150 per hour, but what if the property is 2 hours away?  Then the time doubles, and the savings is eaten up by the time investment.  

@Yan Yan after you update the ads, if you still don't get enough interests, you could re assess the rental price. When you do your analysis, you may look at the places that are currently for rent. Those places may have been in the market for a while and no one has taken them. That may mean the rental price are too high. You could ask your agent for a list of places that have been already rented for. Using that list, you could check if your rental price is competitive or not. 

Without knowing much about the Bergen County market, typically its either an exposure problem, incorrectly priced, or not priced adequately for the level of rehab completed.

@Daniel Green nailed it with CL and Facebook, but I also like listing myself on Zillow as it propagates to Trulia and Hotpads. I find the rental market is a bit different than the buyers market so dropping it in multiple spots (just copy and paste, only takes a few minutes) is good.

Also, have someone with experience (like us!) review your posting. I've seen some joke of-a posts out there -- terrible pictures, no descriptions, nothing that says "RENT ME!" and that's a shame.

Finally, this is I think the third post I've seen where someone has used an agent to try and rent out their home. Here's my concerns with using a real estate agent:

1. Lowest commissions come from rentals for them, so its low on their totem pole
2. Some agents do things better than others...is this agent good at screening people, setting up visits, reviewing applications, doing proper background checks, performing some investigation on the applicants, etc.?

Ultimately I think the person who is best going to find and screen an applicant will be you, so consider doing it yourself if you have the time.

I was trying to rent out a duplex this past winter in Guttenberg and had the same issue with Zillow. I called to try to get it fixed but they said, their system has the property listed as a single family address, not something with two separate units, which is why when you try to list two units there the system can’t register it and just creates two listings for the property that can’t be seen by anyone. The person said that they can’t do anything on there end to fix it as it is just the way it pulls from the local records. 

I tried listing on Zillow, trulia, Realtor.com, all of their affiliate sites, Craigslist and Facebook and wasn’t getting any traffic. Only two people came to look at the place. We ended up putting a sign in the window and ended up finding a tenant that way. Downside is, we had to filter through about 200 phone calls, most of which were tire kickers  

My advice if you decide to put a sign up, make sure you advertise the details of the apt (2 bed 1 bath, etc) and the price. Put it in big bold letters so you can hopefully avoid the tire kickers. 

Best of luck! If I hear if anyone needing a place in the area I’ll send them your way!