The best way to get maximum exposure for your rental vacancies involves placing rental ads in key locations online. A study from Apartments.com found that 61% of online apartment searches begin with either an apartment listing site or a search engine.
Here is a list of the top spots to include on your online marketing checklist. Take note of the spots that syndicate to other outlets and provide additional value to your time investment.
- Craigslist
This online community makes finding everything from kittens to roommates easy for everyone. The Apartments/Housing Rentals section are also popular option for renters. In an effort to avoid rental scams, Craiglist updated their policies to require a couple extra steps for landlords listing vacancies. MultiFamily Executive gives you some tips for How to Post to Craigslist like a Pro. - Apartments.com
Apartments.com claims to offer renters access to information on more than 500,000 available units for rent. According to their website, Apartments.com is supported by the industry’s largest professional research team, which has visited and photographed over 400,000 properties nationwide. Our team makes over 1 million calls each month to apartment owners and property managers, collecting and verifying current availabilities, rental rates, pet policies, fees, leasing incentives, concessions, and more.The Apartments.com network of home rental sites includes Apartments.com, ApartmentFinder.com, and ApartmentHomeLiving.com. - Realtor.com
Realtor.com allows landlords to post individual listings for free. Not only will your potential tenants be able to view property information but Realtor.com includes data about nearby schools, restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. Realtor.com powers other rental search sites like Doorsteps.com and Move.com to provide additional exposure for your listings. - Zillow Rental Manager
Zillow Rental Manager distributes your listings to Zillow, Trulia, HotPads, Yahoo! Homes, MSN Real Estate and other top rental websites. Additionally, you can share your rental vacancies to Facebook, Twitter and create Craigslist ads in just a few steps. Landlords and property managers with fewer than 50-units can use Zillow for free. - Zumper
Zumper provides free rental listing services to landlords and property managers. Zumper recently acquired PadMapper to give the industry even more resources for finding more great rentals. Zumper works with Realtor.com and Walk Score to ensure your listings hit a ton of listing sites. - Apartment List
This rental listing site wants to personalize the rental search process by offering a mobile match making service to renters and landlords alike. Renters fill out search criteria and are matched with your properties, which they can easily accept or deny. Apartment List draws 2.5 million monthly visits. - Homes.com
Give rental searchers options to adjust their search in multiple ways to explore listings through HD videos, InsideView vitual tours, 3D floor plans, photos, and more, while also choosing the most desireable apartment and community features. Homes.com’s network includes: ForRent.com, ForRentUniversity.com After55.com, and CorporateHousing.com. - RentPath
RentPath syndicates their rental listings with Lovely, Rentalhouses.com, Rent.com, Apartment Guide, NewHomeGuide.com, and Rentals.com. This vast network means your listing will be placed in front of over 10 million unique visitors – talk about maximum exposure!
- Social Networks
Don’t forget to promote your rental listings on social media. Use your business’s Facebook and Twitter to post eye-catching photos of your available properties and then link back to your vacancies.
You can also use your personal social media accounts, but be careful about how often you post here. Personal Facebook and Twitter accounts will best serve you if you only have a few rentals and you want to give your friends and family a chance to recommend an acquaintance to your available property. If you post too many advertisements on your personal account, you could risk losing followers.
- Your Professional Website
Always keep your website up to date with your recent vacancies. A proactive renter may Google your company after seeing a posting on one of the sites listed above. If your business website does not include the current listing, they could think it is suddenly unavailable and you will lose that lead.
Check Your Software
A lot of property management software programs include rental listing advertising in the suite of features. Check to see if your software will automatically post your rental vacancies to the top rental listing sites, eliminating the need for you do it yourself. If your software has partnered with the above sites to form an advanced rental listing syndication network you will save yourself valuable time.
Pro Tip: On the other end of the scale, what happens if you find you are getting too many rental applications? If you perform a credit check during your tenant screening, say so in the rental ad. This will cut down on the amount of unqualified rental applications that get sent your way.
