Advertising Your Rental House.

I am a Realtor with Lifestyles Realty which works with a Real Estate Education and Mentoring Group. There my main focus is helping find, evaluate and purchase INCOME producing rental properties. (I'll explain the capitalization in another post another day).


For the buyers outside of that group one of the final questions they ask is, "I have a house for rent now what?"



Great question. Having the best product at an affordable price does not mean much if it only you know about it.

As you start posting ads, get a spread sheet going and buy a note pad to keep with you at all times. I will be honest I was good about keeping accurate information on both prospects and which places where sending me qualified tenants for the first day or so. Then I got sloppy. After that first house, (Which is always the learning house) I got serious and have kept better track since.

The purpose of the spreadsheet is so you can keep track of not just your prospect, the date they called, move in date, etc. But also so you know which is the move effective form of marketing out there. If you don't keep track you won't know what's working and more importantly you'll keep spending money of advertising that does not work.

I don't have a sample one uploaded anywhere yet. If demand rises I'll get a copy out.

Now for the areas I use the most Listed in order of preferred method.

Advertising at the actual Property

• Sign in the yard. The cost is between $5-$15 depending on the type of sign you buy. This is the most effective method I have experience to date. For many reasons then should be put in a blog. Because then I'm beating the dead horse. If the HOA does not allow signs in the yard or free will place the sign in the window and leave the blinds open or up.

Print Ads and local papers

• In the city of Houston we generally use the Greensheets or if you're in a sub market full of Hispanic clientele RUMBO newspaper or one like it. In Chicago it's The Chicago Reader. These are the local papers (I'd like to say most of them are free to readers) that rents pick up weekly to look through. This is also a place to double check pricing. If you think the house is worth $1,100 a month but according to the papers others are renting for $950. You'll be waiting a while to get your $1,100. Most papers charge by the letter, and image if you want to print one. Some also offer online web ads when you purchase through/ with them.

WEB/ Internet time to get nerdy.

• Craigslist it is free and it should get you some high traffic. Just remember there are posting restrictions. You can't post your ad multiple times in one day and so forth. Getting labeled SPAM... well it just plain hurts. You can get a fair amount of response and at times get qualified prospect.
• Rentals.com is a website I personally have mix feelings on. I would get lots of traffic to my pages but not a lot of takers. The prospects also were just as mixed. I also rent to a clientele that normal doesn't traffic websites for that. It may give you better results if you have higher end homes for rent and / or you have multi-family properties. Where you should only stop advertising when you're 110% leased. The costs will vary bast on the package you pay for.
• FaceBook they have an app called market place. This is free with the account and has not generated a lot of response. But as more and more people join facebook it may be where the next wave of renters goes. Since it's free I'd say give it a shot.

REALTORS and MANAGEMENT COMPANIES

• I won't comment on how effective of ineffective they are because it's a roll of the dice because each one is different depending on who you use. I am a Realtor. So I feel like I might do a bang up job where as your brother in law Realtor might thing this article is poop and all you need is him. SO I will comment more on the possible cost. As a generalization your first month's rent goes to them, and then there is a month fee to manage the property. Meaning on your first month, you cover all the bills and the Realtor or management company receives that payment for services rendered. IE. Month 1 that $950 market rent goes to them and then generally a monthly fee of $50 or more goes to manage the property. If a tenant skips or get evicted at times the management company will pay to get the new tenant in there since they let a bad one in. That might not be industry standard so don't expect that. Most Realtors unless they're also specifically hired to manage the property as well. Will just lease and leave.

Disclaimer time. I am not the only word on this. All my words are my own and not an endorsement or were endorsed by any parties mentioned or thought about while writing.

I do strongly you recommend look in to a local Real Estate Investment group of club.
To find one visit http://www.nationalreia.com/

I belong to one of their affiliates www.luinc.com