We see all sorts of emails go by when prospective tenants are searching for a rental property.  We see them wanting to know if that extra bedroom is separated from the rest of the house so that it is suitable to the Mother in Law.  We see people wanting to know if it is a single level home.  We see questions about parking.  Can I park my RV in the driveway? It’s really quite a plethora of items that we see being asked of property managers, Realtors and home owners as prospective tenants contact them about their homes for rent.

However, there are three basic questions that we see over and over.

When is your home available?

When you are posting your advertisement for your home for rent, make sure you tell your prospective tenant when the house you are advertising for rent will be available.  You reduce calls that take valuable time.  It saves you and the prospective tenant time.  If the prospective tenant is looking for something in the next 2 weeks and your property isn’t available for another 6 weeks, it will save you and them time because they can move on to the next property without contacting you.

Do you have more pictures?

How often have we heard that staging fills more properties than anything else.  Well, pictures are “Staging on the Web”.  A person is more likely to call on that house that has the picture of the cute second bedroom, the nicely organized kitchen as well as the spacious living room.  They already have an idea that it is something they are interested in and that they would like to get a closer look.  That’s what you want, isn’t it?  For the prospective tenant to ask to come see that house for rent you are advertising.  So that you get that opportunity to discuss it with them and determine if they are the tenant that you want renting your property for the next several years.

Do you take pets?

Make it clear in your ad what your pet policy is.  If you don’t allow cats, but do allow dogs under 40 pounds, let the prospective tenant know.  This is another huge time saver.  Why have to deal with that email, or that phone call if you can take care of it up front.  If you don’t take pets, making it clear in your advertising will again save you and the prospective tenant a ton of time.

Make sure you are providing the best possible information to your prospective tenants when you post your home for rent.

You often wonder why so many people are using the web to search for their next home for rent.  Why don’t they just use a Realtor?  Realtors have all of the homes for rent right at their finger tips, right?  No.  Not really.

How about the local newspapers, or local houses for rent magazines.  Yes.  Many prospective tenants are using them.  Especially the home rental magazines. They are handy.  You can pick one up walking out of your local Target, K-Mart or Wal-Mart.  Unfortunately, those are usually monthly magazines.  The prospective tenant quickly finds that many of the properties listed are either long gone, or they are on the market for much too long for a reason.  Perhaps they are asking too much money for too little home.  Or, other things are going on making those properties unattractive.  Besides, when you really start looking at those, you quickly find that no listing has more than one picture.  Searchers quickly find that they can get a much better look at prospective new homes by looking on-line.  The smart advertiser is putting lots of pictures in their on-line advertisements.  Kind of like staging on the web for a home for rent.

Look at the on-line resources available to the prospective tenant:  Craigslist, Google, Yahoo Search, Bing.  Are Realtors searching those?  Most Realtors are strictly using their local Multiple Listing Service to search for homes.  Most savvy home searchers understand that there are a ton of resources out there and that if they want to see the most possible rental properties, they need to be using every resource at their fingertips.

Web searchers probably start on Craigslist.  It has become a household name and everyone thinks of it right off the bat.  In most areas of the country, it is still free for anyone to post rental listings on it.  Unfortunately, that also makes it rife with the unscrupulous.  So, it doesn’t take the home searcher long to realize that many of the listings there are scams.  It becomes too hard to tell the difference.  Hopefully, by the time the searcher learns the truth about so many of the ads there, they are still untouched by the harsh reality found there.  Now, they turn to Google or Yahoo to search.  That drives them to the many homes for rent websites available on the web.  Which one are they going to turn to first?  Certainly, the first and most probable is the one that comes up first on Google for their search term “Houses for Rent”.  After that, it is which one is the most pleasing to the eye, easiest to use and probably the one that has the best views including things like the best selection of pictures for each property.  Most tenants aren’t going to become interested in a property just because they see the outside.  We see the most emails and phone calls going to those advertisements that put on the best show.  There it is again “Staging on the Web”.

If you are a property manager trying to fill your homes quickly, make sure you are getting your property listed on the most websites, and that you are properly presenting your home for rent.  The vast majority of people looking for homes to rent today are going to be using every tool they have available to find the home that peaks their interest and are going to call on those first.