Now that leasing season is nearly upon us, investors should know how to effectively market their rental properties. After all, your success as a landlord may depend on how well you prepare and advertise your rentals. If you cannot find and keep good tenants, it’s hard to keep your business going. As such, here are five leasing tips to keep in mind while marketing your rental this season.
5 Leasing Tips to Prepare Your Rental Property
If you want to set your rental property apart from competitors and score high-quality, reliable tenants, you have to work for it. Without an effective listing, quality photos, fair rental rates, and great communication, it could be hard to find great tenants. If you need a few leasing tips to help you get started, here are some of the basics.
- Write an Effective Listing
- Set a Fair Rental Rate
- Advertise and Market Your Rental
- Time the Market Correctly
- Share on Social Media
Write an Effective Listing
The first step in preparing your rental for new tenants is creating an effective listing. As you’re writing your listing, make sure to highlight the best features and amenities that your property offers. Additionally, include all the information that tenants will need to know about the property.
Once you have a detailed description of the property, add high-quality photos that best represent the rental. After all, nobody is going to be interested in a property without seeing photos first. With that, make sure the photos are of good quality and show all parts of the property.
Set a Fair Rental Rate
The rental rate you set is a huge selling point for tenants. Chances are, your prospective tenants are likely looking at several rentals in the area. As such, setting competitive rates that make sense for the market is crucial.
It’s extremely important for investors to do a bit of market research before setting rental rates. After all, if your rates are significantly higher than every other rental property in the area, it’s going to be very difficult to find tenants willing to pay the price. So, look at other rentals in the area, see what they are listing their rental for, and set competitive rates accordingly.
Advertise and Market Your Rental
If nobody can find your listing online, you’re going to have a hard time finding people that are interested in your rental. The next step you’ll want to take after you have a good description and quality photos is to advertise your property on popular rental listing sites.
You can pick which sites you want to advertise your rental on. Or, you can use comprehensive listing sites, which will automatically send your rental to the top rental listing sites on the market. Either way, make sure your listing is public and easy for prospective tenants to access.
Time the Market Correctly
One step that’s often overlooked is timing the rental market correctly. Peak rental season is during the spring and summer months when many renters are looking for new housing. As such, you’ll likely get a lot more engagement with your rental listings during these months.
Additionally, when you list your rental during peak rental season, you may be able to charge higher rates than you would in the winter. As such, if your current lease ends during the off-season, consider extending the lease so it ends during peak rental season to generate more tenant leads.
Share on Social Media
Along with sharing your listing on rental listing websites, it’s also best to share it on social media. Most people these days use social media on a daily basis, so your rental may be noticed much quicker if it’s posted on a platform like Facebook Marketplace.
You can also use Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn to market your rental properties. For instance, you can try uploading a virtual property tour on YouTube or sharing your high-quality property photos on Instagram.
How to Photograph Rental Properties
One of the most crucial steps in preparing your rental for new prospective tenants is taking excellent photos. Here are some leasing tips to keep in mind while preparing your rental for new occupants.
- Clean and Stage the Rental First- Nobody wants to see a messy rental listing. Make sure the property is clean, organized, and picture-perfect. If necessary, you can even stage the rental to make it look best for a listing.
- Capture All Areas of the Property- Don’t skip out on photographing certain areas just because they aren’t as attractive as others. Take photos of the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, basement, and all areas outside the rental.
- Take High-Quality Photos- Don’t upload photos that are fuzzy, blurry, or depict your rental inaccurately. Instead, use a high-quality camera and ensure the pictures turn out well before uploading them.
Rental Property Social Media Marketing Tips
Anyone can list a property on a rental listing website, but it takes some time and effort to share your listing across several sites. To ensure your listing is seen by many people, it’s crucial to expand your network and share it across multiple platforms. Here are some leasing tips to get more engagement on your listings.
- Post on Multiple Platforms
- Use Paid Advertising
- Make Communication Simple
- Ensure Excellent Customer Service
Post on Mulitple Platforms
Although most social media users have Facebook, that doesn’t mean everyone uses it. Additionally, even if most people do use Facebook, that doesn’t mean your listing will gain more traction there. As such, consider expanding your network to several social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Instagram, or real-estate-focused social sites, like Zillow.
Use Paid Advertising
If you already have your social media sites up and running, you may want to consider running advertisements to increase engagement. However, it’s best to have an established following first. Additionally, if you’re going to pay for an advertisement, it must be interesting, engaging, and clickable.
Make Communication Simple
Once you’ve received interest in your rental from prospective tenants, they’ll likely want to contact you for more information or a property showing. As such, you’ll want to make communication as simple as possible for everyone involved. Consider adding your contact information at the bottom of your listing, or create a communication form for prospective tenants to fill out once they visit your website.
Ensure Excellent Customer Service
Nobody likes an unfriendly landlord or a lack of communication when they’re interested in a property. Following up promptly with prospective tenants can make or break a lease agreement. Additionally, customer service isn’t just important for potential tenants–it’s crucial for current renters, too. The better you are to your tenants, the more willing they’ll be to recommend you as a landlord.
Luckily, when you work with your local property management company in Northern Virginia, tenant communication and satisfaction are simple.
Let Your Property Managers Do the Work
The time, work, and effort of owning one or several rental properties can be draining for busy landlords. Listing properties, finding tenants, drafting leases, and managing it all takes a lot of work. Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone.
Bay Property Management Group offers comprehensive rental management services, including tenant screening, maintenance, rent collection, and more. Contact BMG today if you need rental management services in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Northern Virginia, or Washington DC.
