One of the most important jobs you have as a property manager is to keep finding new tenants and keep all your vacancies filled. However, when you have a small advertising budget, this can be particularly challenging. One of the best ways to be successful is to be ready to think outside the box. Here are 4 great ideas to help you keep your vacancies to a minimum.
Today’s social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram offer one of the cheapest and most efficient ways for a property manager to reach a virtually endless number of potential tenants. You can use YouTube to post videos, and the others to post updates on your properties, your company, and stay in touch with other property managers, real estate agents, and others who can help boost your occupancy rates.
There are a number of online listing sites such as Apartment List.com Craigslist, Zillow, and Trulia out there that let you list your properties for free. Create eye-catching ads with great copy and plenty of pictures and videos. These sites are one of the first places potential renters go to when looking for a new home.
One way to find new quality tenants is to talk to your current tenants and let them know about your vacancies. As long as your tenants are happy with their home and your services, most will be more than happy to refer your properties to their friends. Consider offering them some type of incentive such as a gift certificate to a local restaurant if someone they refer to you leases a property. Consider asking your current tenants to write positive reviews on the various online sites.
If your website does not currently have a website, it should have one. If you do then you need to start making good use of the blog. Write regular blogs about what is going on in the area, latest trends in rental properties, specials you may be running, and anything that is likely to attract the attention of potential tenants and bring more traffic to your website. With the right advertising, you may find yourself with more applicants than you have open properties. If you can’t do the writing yourself, you can always hire a freelance writer to create the content for you.
While you don’t have to make use of all of the above suggestions, you should pick out at least a couple of them and put them to good use. It is far more important for you to pick one or two and make the most of them rather than giving each of them a half-baked approach. Of these, making use of social media and blogging are rapidly becoming the most popular and successful form of advertising not only in the real estate world but for almost every product on the market today.
The post 4 Low-Cost Ways for You to Attract New Tenants appeared first on McIntire Management.