Singing Pig

How To Attract Tenants

Once you have bought your investment property, you need to find a way to attract rental tenants. Even if you have the perfect rental property, you need to make rental tenants aware that it is available. There are many methods for attracting rental tenants, all of which can be used to keep your property in use as much as possible.

Driving by

Surprisingly, one of the most common ways of attracting rental tenants is to catch their eye whilst they drive past your property. Studies have shown that a lot of people select rental property by simply driving around their neighbourhood looking for potential rental properties. With this in mind, it is important to make your property visible from the road or street when attracting tenants.

Although most large property complexes already take advantage of this through the use of signposts and full time property managers, smaller investors often overlook this crucial area for attracting rental tenants.

If you put up signs that show people your rental property is vacant, even on quiet roads you will end up with a larger number of responses. This will help you rent out your property to better candidates in a shorter amount of time. Try and use signs like ‘Available Soon’ as this gives the impression the place is not totally empty, and that anyone inquiring will need to negotiate, whilst still showing that the property is available for rent. Put contact details on the sign so that people can contact you about the property easily.

Recommendations

Another great way of attracting rental tenants is through recommendations. A fair amount of tenants find their properties through recommendations from other people. If your property is part of a large complex, let the other residents know, as they might have friends who are looking for somewhere to rent. Also, be sure to mention that a place is becoming vacant to your friends and family, as they might also know someone who is looking for a place to live.

Newspaper Advertisements

Although perhaps less successful than most people think, property advertising in newspapers can still be a good means of attracting rental tenants. Most people who are looking for a new place to rent will look at their local newspaper. The key to making a newspaper advert successful in attracting tenants is to give good information. A lot of people will refuse to put the exact address in the advert. This puts a lot of tenants off, because they often prefer to see the neighbourhood and building before having a face-to-face meeting with a landlord. Although you might not want to put the address in for fear of crime or vandalism, concern over this is usually unfounded. Most people want the address so they can find the property and see if it is to their liking before entering into negotiations. Other information you should include in the advert is the number of bedrooms and the cost. This way people know exactly what sort of place is being advertised, and you will get more people calling who are genuinely interested. You should also include your contact details as well as anything interesting or exceptional about the rental property.

Other methods

There are a number of other methods for attracting rental tenants, which include:

·         Government housing programs

·         Small wanted ads in local stores

·         Adverts in local ‘Want Ad’ publications

·         Listing with an estate agent

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