I advertised on rent.com and that was 50 dollars down the toilet.Not one call and I am priced great.What I have had great success with on my apartments is I have a sign like the ugly yellow sign or a white sign with black marker on it.I pay a person about 5 bucks an hour to go out and hold it for a few hours at lunch and dinner time on a close high traffic street.Also in front of a Wal-mart main road is great also.Each time they do it I get about 5 to 7 calls a day.I have 20 units and growing so if you have one house you might need to only do it for a day or so.I have found it extremely effective because the people are localized or work in the area and want to relocate there and get rid of the commute.Many cities or counties have sign ordinances for being in the ground.What they many times DO NOT have is an ordinance against people holding a sign for a few hours at a busy intersection.So this little tactic has worked well for me.I am landing a bunch of quality tenants from it.

Whats hard is that it does take a while to save up that amount of cash if your doing it the traditional way as we learned from school; save a little each month.Originally I rolled it over to a self directed IRA and invested in stocks and actually did pretty good there, but again I didn't really have the money; it was in the stock.The nice thing about real estate is the cash is in the property and to me I tend to be more invested, active, or feel more control over it than in the money being in Wal Mart or Disney etc.Eventually I decided to cash it out and so far purchased 2 rentals and and working on getting them leased.  

I would have told the tenants to go to Walmart and buy some ant spray for $3.

Costco and walmart.

Thank you, Rudy@Ronald Isgate  and @Andrew Hogan thank you for your comments as well.Single Tenant Net LeaseWhen you own the building who McDonalds, Starbucks, Walmart etc.. operate in and they sign long term leases..Checks in your account every month and the tenant pays all expenses (insurance, taxes, maintenance)  when its absolute NNN they also are responsible for the buildings structure, roof and roof membrane   so basically you are hands off for the duration of the lease.. 

You could go as simple as a smart electric heater that looks like a small fireplace Home Depot and even Walmart will have them hitting the shelves about now and could even double as a small entertainment center for probably less than $150.

I use Medici Gray from Walmart, it's a nice lighter gray that goes well with white trim. 

It was a one trick pony town, once upon a time, but when a Walmart moves in, it's a huge indicator, they think the city is stable.

Buy odor neutralizing fresheners (usually $1-2 each) at Walmart/Target and put them everywhere.

I increased my income from $16k/yr working at Wal-Mart to $35k as an entry level accountant.