5 Secrets to Successful Rental Advertising

All online rental ads are not created equal. In fact, many factors determine whether a rental ad will be successful at attracting renter leads. With so much information and so many choices on the internet, rental marketers need to make sure their ads catch – and hold – the attention of potential renters.

This week, we’re highlighting one of our members’ ads that received over 40 phone and email leads in one month… 40! For those who like to keep track of the numbers, that’s less than a buck a lead (Single-family rental ad = $29.99). Let’s breakdown the strong points of this ad that helped to make it a success:

• Photos – As we’ve mentioned before on this blog, photos of your rental are extremely important! When renters are searching online for their next place to live, appealing property photos are a must. If an ad has sparse (or no) photos, its chances of attracting leads are slim to none. In addition, this ad had more than the 5-photo minimum needed to receive the advertised rental photo-video at no extra charge, which meant even more online exposure.
• Competitive Rental Rates – In a competitive market, the price often matters more to potential tenants than anything else. A great way to find comparable prices in your area is to view other rental ads listed on classified sites and rental marketplaces like Craigslist or RentedSpaces. Our featured rental ad has a very competitive price for comparable rentals in the Salt Lake City area.
• Low Deposit or Incentives – Another great way to help your rental stand out from the crowd is to offer a low deposit or move-in incentive. Especially true during times of recession and employment uncertainty, large deposits are hard to put together and may deter renters from choosing your property. This successful rental ad only required a deposit of about 1/2 the cost of the monthly rent and offered one week of free rent as an incentive.
• Widespread Distribution - Recent studies show that 90% of online renters search multiple sources online before making a decision about where to rent. This fact alone makes it essential to have your rentals advertised on as many places online as possible. With RentShout’s online syndication, this rental ad was able to achieve widespread online visibility and capture the attention of renters searching on multiple websites.
• Easy to Contact - Isn’t it frustrating when you find just what you’re looking for online, but then have no idea how to contact the seller, make the purchase, or close the deal? The same is true for renters searching for apartments and rentals! If they stumble across your online ad, the contact information should be absolutely obvious. In this week’s success example, there is a contact form right at the top of the ad, a flashing email button, and a phone number.

To sum up, renters searching online have a lot to choose from. By including plenty of attractive photos, offering competitive rates and incentives, and distributing the ad across the internet, this rental marketer was able to attract over 40 leads in just one month.

Rental Advertising Services – A Goldmine For Investors

Online rental advertising services are essential for serious real estate investors. The key to making money in real estate is to buy the property and let the renters pay off the loan. So if you have several apartments, you would want to keep them fully rented at all times. Online rental advertising services are being used by rich investors to market their apartments. 

Rental advertising websites provide the maximum exposure for your property to renters. The rental industry is huge so getting your ad in front of prospects require a lot of effort if you were to do it using traditional methods.

 The following are the types of services which rental advertising companies offer:

 1. Submission to rental directories and search engines.

 One of the main services of apartment marketing websites is submitting your rental ad to its network of rental directories and search engines. The first thing a renter would do to find the ideal apartment is to search online.

 Rental directories receive a lot of targeted traffic. Once you’re listed there, you will get renters seeing your ad with your contact details. The more rental directories your ad is submitted to, the more chances of renters seeing your ad.

 If you’re choosing a rental website, make sure that the company has a network of rental directories to broadcast your rental ads to. 

As well as rental directories, your rental ads will also be submitted to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. With your web page consisting of just your ad, listed on several search engines, you will get a considerable amount of targeted visitors.

 Needless to say, search engine traffic can bring you hundreds of renters to your rental every day.

 2. Video Syndication

One of the most interesting features that rental websites offer is video syndication. The company will create a video to market your apartments using images that you provide.

So after you take pictures of every corner of your apartment, you can upload them to the website and have a professional marketing video created for you. The videos are basically a slide presentation of your apartment with background music.

When renters watch a video of the inside of an apartment, they would find it much more attractive than reading plain text. So videos do increase the response rate to the rental ads tremendously.

Apart from producing the video, the company will also submit it to several video sharing websites such as YouTube and Viddler. These video sharing sites get a lot of searches every day and they also rank well in the search engines.

Creating and submitting the videos by yourself would take many hours.

3. Social Media

Another place where renters can be found is social media sites. Unless you’re living under a rock, you would have heard of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and others. These social websites are an excellent way to market your apartments.

People in these social networks interact amongst each other. If someone sees an ad for an apartment, they would pass on the message to people they know who are looking to rent.

With a broadcast of your rental ad to these social networks, you can expect to receive responses from interested renters quickly.

As you can see, rental advertising websites are a must if you’re looking to find renters for your apartment. The amount of exposure you will get from your ads is much more than traditional methods of contacting agents and placing classified ads. Finding renters for your apartment has never been so easy.

It’s a Renter’s Market

I am sure most have heard the saying “It’s a buyer’s market”. You generally hear this when supply on property for sale is much greater than buyer demand. We are now in a time where it’s both a buyers market and a “renter’s market”. Why? The drop in real estate values is fueling the rental market and giving renters plenty of choices. Many owners have decided to keep their property and rent them out until the real estate market recovers. Many investors are also picking up foreclosures and renting them out. With so many rentals on the market to choose from, it creates a very competitive space. As a property manager, you will need to advertise your rentals everywhere you can. Many property managers and landlords are offering incentives to lure in renters.