What To Do When Your Property Isn’t Renting?
By Paul Esajian on March 31, 2014
Filling a vacancy can be a very stressful time for any property owner. The sheer thought of having to cover the mortgage payment out of pocket or have no money coming in at all can cause many sleepless nights. Before you get in a panic as far as what you will do if that day comes, there are a few things you should be doing first. Ideally you would have given yourself at least a few months to find a tenant so you have some time to work with. Assuming that is the case, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances.
The first thing is to look at where and how you are advertising. You should use all of the free sites available, including: Craigslist, Postlets, Truila and Zillow. In addition, you should be blasting your property out through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Putting this information out there is great, but is it not enough. If the response is not quite what you want, take a look at how you are describing the property. Take the time and write out all of the perks of the property and highlight a few of the stronger points. Include interior and exterior quality photos of the property. The better your listing reads, the more interest will be garnered.
If you are getting calls and showing the property without any real interest, you need to look at why this is the case. The two most likely reasons are the property is not showing very well and the price is too high. It is always difficult showing a property with active tenants. You can ask them to tidy up the place, but their definition of clean is most likely not the same as yours. What you may consider is having anyone that is interested come to the house on the same day and possibly getting it professionally cleaned. You can offer your tenant a gift certificate for the inconvenience of a few hours, but if you are not showing the property in its best light, you may be missing out on many good would-be tenants.
Finally, the most difficult step is to lower your rent price or add some sort of value. If the interest is there but nobody is committing, your price may be too high. If you give yourself 8 weeks or more, lower the price for two weeks and see what happens. Many landlords consider this a loss and feel like they are giving up money from what they rented the property for just last year. The reality is that even though you are not getting the same amount the alternative is not having it rented at all. A small reduction of 5-10% or adding cable for the lease is much better than going months without a tenant. You can always increase the rent back to your original price after the lease is over if the market warrants it, but you need to take action now if you want to find a tenant. You should not let stubbornness get in the way of getting your property rented.
Scrambling to find a tenant is a very uncomfortable time for any landlord and property owner. In this time you need to take firm action and not wait for a tenant to come to you. The longer you wait the less chance you have of getting exactly what you want.