You might have the best rental property on the market, but if you don’t advertise it properly, you’ll find yourself with a vacant unit you’re unable to fill.
To find great tenants for your units so you can start collecting rent as soon as possible, you need to know the best marketing strategies used by landlords today.
Here are four tips for improving your rental advertising:
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Know Your Target Demographic
One of the most important aspects of any kind of marketing is knowing your audience. This shapes how and where you post your advertisement. If your property is a run-down house in a college town, chances are that a family with young kids isn’t interested in your property. As such, you’ll want to write a listing aimed at attracting college students. Furthermore, you’ll want to post ads for your property in places you know college students in the area will be looking.
Whatever the case, be conscious about who you aim to attract with your property, and let this help guide your marketing.
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Create a High-Quality Listing
You want your property listing to be eye-catching, professional, specific, and accurate. A property listing is comprised of three components:
Your headline is the first thing to grab people’s attention. A headline consists of one line that concisely tells renters the essential information about your property, such as the price, type of property, number of beds and baths, the neighborhood, and the property’s best feature. Keep the headline professional by avoiding exclamation points and all caps.
The next component of your listing that renters will see is photos. For most renters, photos are the deciding factor when deciding whether to continue with a property. You don’t need a professional photographer, but make sure you utilize natural lighting and upload high-quality photos. Highlight important rooms first, such as the kitchen, and remember to include floor plans.
Finally, the description. This is where all the details about your property are contained. In the description, include information about amenities, a list of rooms, dimensions, the exact location, lease terms, and your pet policy. Make sure to spell everything correctly and use proper punctuation.
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Be Conscious of Ad Placement
Knowing where to advertise a rental property goes hand in hand with knowing your target demographic. Putting up yard signs may work well on a college campus but seem hokey to older professionals.Â
In general, paper ads aren’t worth the time, money, and effort these days. If you post a flyer in a high-traffic location with a QR code to your website, your property might get some attention. For the most part, though, paper ads are becoming a thing of the past for rental properties.
By far, the most popular way that renters find properties these days is through property listing sites. Listing sites are easy for landlords to use, and they receive a high volume of renters every day. Popular listing sites include Zillow, Appartments.com, Trulia, Zumper, and even Craigslist. While some require you to pay for every property you list, many offer listing rental property for free.
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Use Listing Syndication
Listing syndication is one of the best property management marketing tools that landlords have. With listing syndication software, you can create a single listing and post it to multiple listing sites simultaneously. This not only saves you time from having to create, post, and manage multiple listings, but it allows you to reach a wider pool of renters more quickly. This means you’ll be able to fill your unit with a high-quality tenant sooner, saving you money.
With listing syndication, you won’t have to keep track of multiple listings and accounts. Because all of your feeds are consolidated in a single location, you’re less likely to overlook the activity that a listing generates. Furthermore, if you ever need to make changes to your listing, you can do so on the listing syndication software, and the changes will carry over to each listing site to which it’s syndicated.
Conclusion
Creating a compelling listing and advertising it in the right places is crucial if you want to fill your vacancies quickly with the tenants you’re looking for. By following the tips discussed in this article, your rental advertising will improve in no time.
