Jul
1
Celebrating 5 Years of 0% Downtime – Rental Properties
July 1, 2008 | Comments Off
It is amazing that even with all of the issues the economy has had, including a slump in real estate property values and sales, our two townhouses are still rented: and have been rented for every single day since they where initially available for rental.
How has it happened? I could attribute it to sheer luck. However, I must say that it is also a good measure of due diligence: advertising it, and advertising it in the right places.
We used a realtor for the first tenant of our first rental property. Soon we learned that she preferred two methods: word of mouth, and local paper advertisements. We surely added them to our repertoire.
Advertisement methods that we have tried:
- Word of Mouth – Give a friend a flyer to post in a local bulletin board (at work). Has worked well. It has been a pleasure to do business with friends of friends. (Although it could be risky, it also brings people with shared values).
- Local Paper adds – They work – especially if you post them on weekends. Good thing is you can list property details and it filters a lot of the calls that are just to ask for price and how many bedrooms and bathrooms the property has.
- Yard Sign - We have one of the townhomes on a Main Street. For that one we just put a sign on the yard. People call — and it is free! So far that has been the most effective method, but I guess it is most effective if the sign is on a main road.
- Internet Websites – They have provided leads. But they have been less effective than we expected. Good thing is that you can put pictures and describe it better than on a newspaper classified. Fairly cheap as well.
- Postcards Sent to Similar Rental Units – This kind of junkmail has not worked as well. It has provided a few leads, but not too many. None of them have signed a lease. Benefit / Cost is low.
Any other method you care to share? We want to keep the business with 0% downtime for longer.
Related Posts:
Comments
Subscribe
