Every good property manager knows that marketing is a big part of the job. When your rental property is empty, you have to find good tenants to fill it quickly before you begin to lose money.
Once upon a time, advertising rental properties meant sticking a sign in the yard or buying a classified ad in the local newspaper, limiting your exposure. These days, thanks to technology, you have dozens of new ways to reach prospective tenants online if you use them correctly.
Not only do these websites allow you to reach more clients, but they allow you to really show off your property if you are willing to do a little extra work. You can add photos, video, content, and much more in most cases.
Some sites for renting homes allow you to advertise your rentals for free, while others may charge a monthly or annual fee. Some of them even make it easier for you to advertise across other mediums, like your social media pages. Best of all, most are easy to use and may even integrate with other sites so that you aren’t creating multiple listings over and over again.
If you are ready to start advertising rental properties online, you can’t go wrong by starting with the following list:
Love it or hate it, Craigslist remains one of the best places to list a rental property. Sure, it doesn’t have the greatest reputation, but it is free, and more property managers and tenants use it than any other form of advertising.
As a matter of fact, it’s one of the first places people look when they need to find a home to rent. You have the freedom to talk about your listing in any way you want, and you can add pictures.
Just be prepared to weed through renters who aren’t serious about renting your property, and be on the lookout for scammers. If something seems off or too good to be true, use a little common sense and you should be fine.
Zillow is one of the biggest names in the real estate industry, so it only makes sense that the company would offer the best rental property website. The company recently purchased the property manager-favorite site Postlets and re-branded it as its own.
That means that, for free, you can still create the detailed listings you loved before, but now you have the advantage of creating one listing that goes out across dozens of other big-name sites like Trulia, WalkScore, Hotpads, MSN Real Estate, AOL Real Estate, and Yahoo! Homes.
Once a property becomes available again, you can reactivate the listing without having to go through the trouble of recreating it.
The best part of this software, Hemlane, is that they'll list your rental to the vast majority of the rental websites.
They advertise to Zillow, Trulia, HotPads, Apartments.com, Zumper, and many, many more. You can also copy the listing and information over to Craigslist and your social media platforms.
The listing will be available for the next time your rental becomes vacant, and any tenant who inquires about your rental will show up on Hemlane for you to contact.
Another one of the best places to list rental properties is Oodle. Much like Craigslist, it allows you to advertise everything from jobs to cars, but the real estate section is quite popular. It’s a great free option when you need to find local tenants quickly.
Realtor.com is another one of the biggest names in the real estate industry, and it’s an excellent place for listing a house to rent.
The site only accepts rentals from owners and property managers, which helps weed out junk listings. Its mobile site is one of the most popular in the business. Many property managers love it because it’s simple search feature makes it easier for tenants to find them by location and price.
For example, if you were a property manager in Oakland, CA, you would be happy to know that you can potentially have a sea of prospective tenants looking for houses for rent in Oakland, CA through realtor.com. Prospective tenants would just simply type in Oakland, California in the location prompt and they have the ease of using an App to find your listings.
Of all the places to post apartments for rent, Apartments.com is definitely a favorite. It does allow you to post houses and other types of properties, but as the name suggests, most people come here looking specifically for an apartment.
One reason why property managers love this site more than others is its national exposure. People across the United States who may be moving to the Oakland area are likely to look here.
Hotpads offers an interactive map that allows tenants to search by zooming into their favorite neighborhoods, but that’s not the only reason renters love it.
It also caters to pet owners. This site tends to be popular with professionals looking to relocate because of their corporate jobs, which is something that makes it appealing to certain property managers.
You don’t always have to rely on a third party to help you get your listing out there. Your website can be one of the best places to list rental properties because there are no parameters.
You can make the listing as big or as small as you like with as many pictures, as much video, and as much content as you deem necessary. If you focus on SEO, create a decent mobile site, and use quality pictures, video, and content, your website can be the best place to advertise.
Your social media pages are a close second when it comes for listing a house for rent. Once you create a listing, whether it’s on your site or a third-party site, you can share it across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and beyond. Be sure to engage other users and look for people in or around your area to gain a following.