Advertising for Tenants – Don’t Waste Your Money!
Advertising for tenants can be expensive in more ways than you think. Last fortnight we wrote about how tenants can find a great property manager. This fortnight, we’ll answer a common question of property investors with a vacant home:
Where do you find great tenants?
There are several options available to make it known that your property is available. Below, we’ll list them as well as their pros and cons.
Gumtree
Akin to online classifieds, Gumtree is a smorgasbord of products for sale but does not specialise rental property advertisement. You can sell almost anything – even the wedding dress of a cheating wife. Yes, it really happened and we have shared a link at the bottom of this blog if you care to read about it, along with 17 other really weird things people have advertised.
The assumption from many prospective tenants is that listings on Gumtree will be private rentals, making owners a prime target for those who are unable to rent through an agency due to poor references.
Agents see through the hard luck stories and stick to qualified references. Private landlords who advertise on Gumtree are often compassionate, naive and keen to secure a tenant which can expose them to risk of being taken advantage of.
Noticeboards
Little pieces of paper pinned to a board – easily removed and/or scribbled on. This is one of the most ineffective ways to find a tenant. It’s free and it should be – very rarely does it work.
Newspaper Advertisements
Digital media has all but wiped out print media completely. It’s expensive, especially if you want to add photos. And it’s gone as soon as the fish and chips need a wrapper. Least value for money and short-lived.
It’s no secret that, after starting as a home-based business 3.5 years ago, we used Facebook to its fullest potential to gain exposure. It was a relatively inexpensive form of advertising and, as the business gained traction, our clients and tenants shared their experiences with us, which helped to grow our business further. As much as it’s been a wonderful medium, and one we still use to this day to complement our marketing campaigns, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all to finding tenants. Nobody goes to Facebook specifically to find a property. Prospective tenants may passively stumble across an ad and decide that what they see is good enough to move, but it’s not common.
For Rent Signs
We do see these up from time to time, sometimes with agencies, sometimes for private rentals. If your home is not on a busy road, the exposure from people driving by isn’t enough and you are hoping that somebody is keen enough to try and find a spot to pull over to grab the phone number off the sign. You also become a target for vandalism of the sign, and possibly a break in of the home. Minimal cost is not worth the risk
Rental Lists
Definitely still popular but if this is all your agent is doing, you are missing out on the thousands of people who are looking on line and who can’t be bothered driving from place to place, finding a park and grabbing a single-photo blurb of your property.
Realestate.com
They cornered the market many years ago and it worked. Realestate.com delivers more enquiries than any other. The con – it’s expensive when you consider the up-front cost. The pro – it works and is therefore cheaper in the end.
When all is said and done, you get what you pay for, or more to the point – you don’t get what you don’t pay for. A longer vacancy period as a result of trying to save money on advertising inevitably costs far more in the long run. Getting a free tenant through a free advertising medium can also cost you more if they don’t turn out to be the avid gardener and law abiding citizen they promised you they were.
There is 1 final option but only available to property investors who have employed a proactive property management agency.
Working a Database
A proactive agent will ensure that they build a reputation that makes prospective tenants choose to rent through THEM, and not just rent your property. They will have a database of people they have previously worked with to send your property out to before it hits the open market.
A proactive agent will meet a quality prospective tenant and qualify their needs and requirements and think about what else may suit, what may be coming up that isn’t yet listed.
Experience the Welcome Home Rentals Difference
At Welcome Home Rentals, we have tenants who specifically want to rent with our agency. Why? They know that we treat them with respect – take a look at our Facebook reviews from many tenants who have been pleasantly surprised to find that we care about them, too.
We work actively within our current tenant pool, and those prospective tenants who have enquired previously with us. If one of our amazing current tenants tells us they want to move, we give them first option of what is coming up at the end of their lease. It makes sense to hold onto wonderful tenants who are already familiar with what we expect.
As a result of the musical chairs game that we play, we have saved many of our clients any fees at all for advertising and delivered tenants with proven rental history with our agency. A bird in the hand is better than 2 in the sky.
If you have a property that needs quality tenants, call us on 5481 5185 or email [email protected]
As promised, for those wondering about the cheating wife wedding dress, you can read about it here
