Owning a rental property isn’t enough if you intend to make money in the real estate industry. To be a successful investor in residential real estate, you must aim to keep your property occupancy rate high and minimize instances of vacant properties. This is why it is important to learn various real estate marketing strategies to find tenants for your properties.
But don’t worry. This article discusses the most effective real estate marketing strategies that could help you find the right tenants for your rental property and boost your property’s occupancy rate.
1. Advertise your rental property properly to find tenants
It’s important to mention that tenants have become more demanding as technology continues to change how property owners advertise their properties and how tenants look for properties for rent. If you want to find tenants, you must know how to advertise your property properly to position it in the market.
One of the most practical real estate marketing strategies to advertise your rental property and find tenants is to advertise rental listings. Landlords have different methods on how they go about finding potential renters or customers through a rental listing. However, most landlords prefer to use online platforms like Craiglist.com, Zillow.com, and other similar websites that allow them to post their available units for rent or sale. Using these sites helps landlords save time and energy because there are no phone calls necessary when posting an ad.
If you want to get more exposure, then you can also put up flyers around town or even at local community centers where people often gather. Posting advertisements at these locations helps ensure that everyone knows what kind of unit you offer. It would help if you always tried to give prospective tenants all the details regarding the apartment, such as the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, parking spaces, etc. It is best to avoid giving away too much information when trying to sell apartments since this could lead to fewer buyers.
Here is how to make your rental property listing stand out.
Property description
Nearly all real estate marketing strategies involve writing catchy, inviting, and unique descriptions of the property. This is why it is recommended to take the time, find out what your immediate competitors are doing, and create an outstanding description for your rental units.
Along with the use of carefully chosen words, ensure all the essential aspects of your rental property are mentioned. For instance, you must highlight the number of bathrooms, bedrooms, the property’s square footage, and more. Make your rental property descriptions precise and easy to understand.
Add professional photos
When advertising your rental properties, remember to include pictures of each room so that potential tenants can know exactly what to expect from the space. If possible, provide photos showing common areas, kitchen layouts, living room arrangements, amenities, and any special features in the building itself. The key here is to highlight everything that makes your place stand out above others.
2. Use online real estate marketing strategies
One of the effective ways to find tenants for your rental property is to market the rental units online. Sure, word of mouth and newspaper advertisements can help find tenants for your rental units. However, marketing your property online offers you the advantage of reach a larger group of potential tenants easily and affordably. So, advertising your property on online platforms is the way to go.
Well, there are numerous real estate marketing strategies you can implement and find tenants for your property. For instance, you can use social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to reach potential tenants. It’s also possible to advertise your investment property to a specific demographic group chosen by age, occupation, location, and relationship status.
Also, you can actively market your property to potential tenants depending on their interests and search history. You will invest money in such ads. Nevertheless, you’ll soon realize that finding good tenants online is a much faster and rewarding process.
3. Set the right rent for your tenants
To find tenants for your property, you must set the appropriate amount of rent. Determining how much to charge your tenants for rent is a big dilemma for most landlords. To get an idea of how much you should charge your tenants for rent, consider looking at local rental listings for comparable properties. This will give you insights into pricing trends and help identify areas where competition might be steep.
The best way to find out whether it’s time to increase the price of rent is by comparing costs with other similar apartment complexes within your target search radius. For example, suppose you’re trying to fill up two apartments in Ottawa. In that case, you’d compare prices against the same type of unit in nearby neighborhoods and towns.
One of the top real estate marketing strategies is to ensure that all necessary repairs have been made before advertising your vacant rental properties. If there are no water heater, furnace, or roofing issues, try not to mention them when posting ads. This could allow you to charge a little bit higher rent amount. After all, you can still find tenants who are willing to pay higher for well-maintained rental properties.
If you want to raise rents but don’t want to turn off potential tenants who would normally qualify for lower rates, consider raising the minimum lease length from 6 months to 9-12 months. It may seem counterintuitive, but this can actually attract longer-term renters since they know they’ll have plenty of time to save up enough money for higher payments after their initial six-month stay.
4. Ensure excellent property management
Another effective property marketing strategy to find tenants is excellent property management. That means you must keep your rental property in perfect shape. Before looking for new tenants for your rental units, ensure all damages have been fixed, and there are no problems with the rentals. You can do this on your own or outsource such tasks to a property management company.
If you want to be making money in residential real estate and ensure a steady income, you must be responsive. You must respond to potential tenants’ queries immediately. Whenever there are people interested in your property, you must schedule viewing as soon as possible and ensure that the rental property is in good shape (clean and welcoming).
Kean Real Estate Group can help you find tenants.
Owning a rental property is not easy. And it’s more challenging to find tenants than most landlords think. However, the four real estate marketing strategies discussed will help you find suitable tenants for your rental property and ensure better cash flow.
We are real estate consultants offering real estate coaching, property management, and tenant placement services. Also, we help investors create and implement well-thought-out real estate marketing strategies to find qualified tenants for their properties.
