6 Tips for Filling Your Rental Units

Vacancies are bad for a rental business. A vacant unit costs a landlord’s time and resources while generating zero revenue.

To maximize profit and make your life as a landlord easier, you need to reduce turnover time and find high-quality tenants. Property management software for landlords facilitates this process, saving you time and money in the long run.

Here are six tips you should follow for filling your rental units:

1. Create an Appealing Listing

An appealing property listing is arguably the most important step to getting prospective tenants interested in your property in the first place. On average, you’re competing against about 100 other properties in a real estate market, so the higher the quality of your listing, the higher the quality and number of tenants you’ll attract.

A listing is comprised of four major components:

• Headlines
• Photos
• Descriptions
• Prices

You want to spend time and care on each component, making sure each is attractive and provides clarity for prospective tenants.

• Use Listing Syndication Software

After you’ve constructed your listing, you need to advertise it. Listing sites such as Apartments.com and Rent.com have become the primary way renters look for new homes.

Listing syndication software is the easiest way to get your listing on these major listing sites. It acts as a middleman between you and the major listing sites, posting your listing on all the sites that matter. This saves you from having to manually post your listing on every individual site. Listing syndication software enables you to reach a wide pool of renters in a short amount of time, which means your unit is more likely to get filled quickly by a high-quality tenant.

• Screen Tenants Thoroughly

One of the most important aspects of filling your rental unit is avoiding bad tenants and finding great ones. Great tenants will pay rent on time, respect your property, and rent with you long term, which reduces vacancies. To find tenants like these, you need to conduct thorough tenant screening.

Property management software provides you with the tenant screening tools you need. Credit reports, eviction histories, and criminal records all contain information you should know about your tenants before renting to them. A rental application is also a crucial part of tenant screening, as it will provide you with the necessary information you need to ask your applicants, such as their monthly income and employment history.

• Employ Passive Screening

Most of what was discussed above relates to active screening, which is the process of denying bad tenants and accepting good ones. Another branch of tenant screening that is often overlooked is passive screening. Passive screening is a way to target the kinds of tenants you want before they even apply.

For example, when advertising your unit, you should make the price of rent clear so you attract tenants who can afford your rent. By a similar token, if you have a no-pet policy, you should specify this in your listing; that way, renters with pets are less likely to apply. Passive screening saves you spending time sifting through tons of unqualified applicants, and this will increase your turnaround time.

• Sign Leases Digitally

Signing paper leases can soak up a lot of time. You either need to set up a time for you and your tenant to meet in person, or you have to deal with the postal service, which can take even longer with shipping.

Signing leases digitally with property management software makes everything much faster and easier. As soon as you finish drafting a lease, you can send it to your tenant in-platform, where they can sign it immediately. Electronic signatures reduce lease turnaround by 80%. This means your units get filled faster, saving you money in the long run.

• Manage Maintenance Online

Maintenance is one of the biggest hassles landlords must deal with. Unfortunately, the longer it takes to repair maintenance requests, the greater the risk of long-term damage.

Property management software allows you to deal with maintenance requests in the fastest way possible. As soon as a tenant has a maintenance issue, they can send you a request on the platform, and you can start managing it immediately. By being attentive to maintenance requests, you won’t have to get bogged down with more serious maintenance problems during vacancies, which will allow you to fill your units faster.

Conclusion

Filling your units quickly and with the best tenants possible will save you tons of time and money. By following these tips, you can reduce vacancies and maximize revenue from rent payments.