By Veronika As a landlord, keeping your properties leased is one of the keys to maintaining strong cash flow. And while some vacancy is normal, extended vacancies can leave you in a financial hole. Figuring out a system to keep tenants in your properties will benefit you tremendously in the years to come.
7 Tips for Filling Your Vacancy
When you invest in a rental property, it’s always a good idea to account for some vacancy. One month per year is a safe number in most markets. However, your goal should be to keep your property rented for as close to 365 days per year as possible.
When your property is vacant and you have no tenant lined up, here are some suggestions you can use to get the unit filled:
1.Outsource to a Property Manager
The easiest option is to outsource your property marketing and tenant acquisition to a property management company. These companies have connections and, depending on the setup, are incentivized to help you find the best possible fit. They don’t get paid if you don’t get paid!
2.Use Word of Mouth
Ideally, you want to fill your vacancy without having to go through the painstaking process of creating a listing, investing in marketing and advertising, collecting applications, and screening a bunch of people. In a perfect world, you simply reach out to your network (which includes both personal and professional connections) and let them know that you have a vacant property. This is the most cost-effective option.
3.Leverage Social Media
Social media is another great place to get the word out. The beauty of using a platform like Facebook is that other people in your network can tag and share. This amplifies visibility and allows you to reach more people without any additional effort.
4.Put up Signs
Even in a digital age, there’s still immense value in putting a “for rent” sign in the yard. This is especially valuable if your property is located on a road that gets a lot of traffic. With the right visibility, you can easily find a tenant within a day or two using this approach.
5.Use Free Online Classifieds
There’s no need to pay for an expensive ad placement. There are plenty of free online classifieds where you can post your listing and drive qualified leads directly to your application. Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist are the obvious places, but there are plenty of niche and local platforms, too.
6.Optimize Your Listing
When prospective renters are looking through listings, they’re trying to be as efficient as possible. They aren’t going to spend 10 minutes with every listing they run across. They quickly scan and move on. And that’s why your listing should focus on a few key elements:
- An eye-catching title that’s descriptive and compelling
- Descriptive language that discusses the key points of the property
- Lots of high-resolution images that show each room from multiple angles.
While there’s an art to developing well-optimized listings, you don’t have to become an excellent copywriter overnight.
“Fortunately for all of us, these things don’t need to be creative or overly unique,” expert Kasia Manolas writes. “They just need to give the tenant what they’re actually looking for. And once you understand what tenants are looking for, it’s really just formulaic.”
Review the rental property listings in your area and then study the ones that find tenants within a matter of hours. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel – just copy these formats and tweak them to your property.
7.Ask Existing Tenants
If you own other rental properties, get in touch with your existing tenants and ask them if they have any referrals. You might even incentivize them with a discount on their rent if they send you someone who ends up signing a lease agreement.
Find the Right Tenant
The right tenant can be difficult to find. And in the heat of the moment, when you feel the pressure to put someone in the unit, it’s easy to make a poor decision. Be careful not to rush into a decision. Take your time and remain disciplined. It’s better to wait an extra week or two for the right person than to rush into a lease agreement with someone who will create headaches for months to come.
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Lorenzo Billie