Latest / Cash Flow for Life / Chapter 17: Marketing for, Finding, and Interviewing Tenants
Transcript
- 00;00;00;06 - 00;00;16;13 Chapter 17 marketing for Finding and Interviewing Tenants. We discussed marketing for tenants a bit earlier, but let's go into more detail here and discuss the application and interview process. 00;00;16;15 - 00;00;43;10 Marketing and advertising for tenants. Your marketing and advertising plan can grow and evolve with your business. It doesn't have to require any real budget at the beginning. The different methods and marketing media can be selected based on how they fit your market area and tenant demographics. You don't have to spend a dime to implement some of them, and others are inexpensive yet effective if done properly. 00;00;43;12 - 00;01;10;08 Newspaper classifieds. You might think that nobody looks at the newspaper classifieds anymore, but we're not just talking print. We're talking print and online. We touched on these earlier. A continuous ad in the classifieds under rental homes can be a great investment. Keeping it short makes it inexpensive, and you may be able to negotiate a reduced rate for a contract to run regularly. 00;01;10;11 - 00;01;34;09 It can be a short and sweet as great homes for rent in the best neighborhoods. Call this number. Remember that you don't necessarily need to have a home available right now. You can learn from your callers the types of homes they want and use this information in your purchase plans. You may also be able to purchase a home to fit a tenant. 00;01;34;09 - 00;02;01;21 Exactly. You'll have the time to make it happen if tenants call you earlier enough before their planned move. If you do have a home that will be available soon, then running a longer ad with specifics for that particular home would be a good use of classifieds. Renters start looking even before they make a decision to move, because they want to see if what's available is worth the hassle of moving. 00;02;01;23 - 00;02;34;25 Online. Listing sites, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, KGB, etc. online listing sites are invaluable as a marketplace for your rental business. It's free, and it allows you to not only place ads, but also find out what others are looking for because it's free. Some renters will actually run looking for rental ads that provide information you may want to factor into future purchase decisions. 00;02;34;27 - 00;03;05;07 Just a quick look at one town's online ads for rentals found 2 or 3 renters actually asking for rental properties, telling you exactly what they're looking for. However, you can run your online ads to get rental applicants, much like you would in the newspaper. Classified ads. You can be as wordy as you want, with most of these sites describing specific properties or running that general ad to just get prospective tenants to call or email you. 00;03;05;09 - 00;03;28;17 In fact, because online users can search based on words in the listing, you want to have features and other things about the property written here to attract that renter to your ad via the search. One advantage of online listings is the email response mechanism. You can begin to build an email list of renters for when you are buying a new property. 00;03;28;19 - 00;03;55;13 We go in this email response mechanism in detail in the quick start to cash flow book Bulletin boards. Whether you're in a college town or you're renting properties, you're a major employer. They're going to be opportunities to place rental ads on company or school bulletin boards. There may also be coffee houses in the area that are frequented by renters, and have bulletin boards you can post on. 00;03;55;16 - 00;04;10;01 This is a great resource when you want to advertise a specific property. You can create a small document in your Microsoft Word program and add photos to the text. It's free and effective. Marketing. 00;04;10;03 - 00;04;37;29 Social networking. For more free marketing, consider setting up a Facebook page for your business, an Instagram account, or a Twitter account. The Facebook page can become a permanent home for images and description of your properties. Much like having your own website for free, the Instagram and or Twitter account can be automatically set up to receive new stuff from your Facebook page, or you can work it in the other direction. 00;04;38;02 - 00;05;05;01 Posting availability notices on Instagram or Twitter and having them show up automatically on your Facebook page and most importantly, in other users feeds. You can save searches on Instagram or Twitter that will notify you based on key phrases, such as rental in your town or need a house to rent in your town. To catch discussion groups going on in your area about home rentals. 00;05;05;03 - 00;05;27;24 If you are alerted of postings by people looking for rentals, you can enter the discussion and point them to your Facebook page or to your website, or have them call you or email you website. Once you have several properties, you may want to set up your own website to promote them. A website can range from free to very expensive. 00;05;27;27 - 00;05;50;08 It requires a bit more work, but it can save you a lot of time in the future when you get interest from your other internet marketing efforts. You can have multiple photos and all the text you want about features and amenities. In real estate, you don't need a very expensive website. Your real estate investing business can be represented by an inexpensive website or even a free website. 00;05;50;10 - 00;06;17;20 Do some online searches to see what works for you. Should you receive interest via email? You can just send the potential tenant a link to your website with all of the details of the property and your business. You can even do video to promote your properties and it's all free advertising on a website. If someone should locate your website doing internet searches for rentals, they will find your phone number as well as a link to your email address. 00;06;17;22 - 00;06;39;07 These are the primary ways in which you will market the tenants in the future. Of course, there are other methods and media, but these are the most cost effective and they work well. You don't want you to spend all of your profit in marketing, so let's find free or inexpensive ways of doing it. Talking to tenants on the first contact. 00;06;39;10 - 00;07;15;02 Sometimes you'll be talking to prospective tenants when you don't have a property ready for occupancy because your marketing is running continuously generating leads. However, once they're on the phone or corresponding with you via email, you can get valuable information from them and possibly still end up with them as tenants based on their timeline and yours. If they are calling about a specific property and you're ready to lock them down as tenants, your first contact should be a friendly one, and you should be careful as to which questions you ask. 00;07;15;05 - 00;07;39;14 You are subject to certain housing and equal opportunity laws, so you may want to be familiar with what you can and cannot ask a renter. You may even want to run your application question list past your attorney. Let's get this out of the way now, as it's also important in your application process. If you can't ask them on the phone and you can't ask them on paper either. 00;07;39;16 - 00;08;03;08 It's not something to be fearful of. But you always want to be law abiding in all aspects of your business operations. For example, in some areas you can ask your tenant if they plan on bringing pets into the unit, and in some areas you can't. It's always important to know your local laws. If you advertise the property for a specific rental amount. 00;08;03;10 - 00;08;25;08 The prospective tenants should be able to pay that because they've contacted you. If you haven't advertised a certain rental amount, you'll want to get past any objections to the amount of rent in the first conversation. Once you have discussed the property a bit and the cost of rent and utilities, if there's still interest, it's time to schedule a showing. 00;08;25;11 - 00;08;42;15 Property showings. Scott. There are seven groups, all waiting to see our only rental. Get over here and give me some help showing it. I'll help Michael, but let's rush them through because we need to go right out and buy another property. 00;08;42;17 - 00;09;10;28 Remember this conversation from chapter two? We're getting you past our mistakes yet again. We enthusiastically advertised a property with a date and a time for showings, and ended up with a bunch of people all there at once. Doing this was a mistake, though. It made everyone uncomfortable because they perceived pressure and competition for the house, and it makes showing it a hassle because there are too many people there at once. 00;09;11;00 - 00;09;34;04 We missed conversations with so many people. Showings should not overlap like this. If you have several people who want to see the property, it's okay to set up the showings close enough together so that you're not sitting there waiting. However, try to keep the two groups from spending too much time together on the property. Security could also be a concern. 00;09;34;07 - 00;10;00;04 You don't know these people, so make sure that someone in your family, a friend or a partner knows when you'll be at the home for showings. You might even have a prearranged distress signal you can use by calling that person on yourself from the house. You must always be aware of safety issues. Now, this might sound a little alarmist or a little like overkill, but we want to think of everything for your business. 00;10;00;06 - 00;10;25;17 Point out features and neighborhood amenities during the showing, but allow prospective tenants to walk through and spend whatever time they want in each room. Don't follow them around and hover. No one likes that. When they arrive, you might ask them if they want to go through on their own first, or if they want you to accompany them. Some people want to talk to each other about it, with their future landlord being right there. 00;10;25;20 - 00;10;48;19 Be quick and complete in answers to their questions. Now, in some areas or some cases, you don't want to have strangers going through your current tenants rooms unsupervised, so you may have to escort them or concierge service them through the property. Do what feels right at the time and what makes the most sense with your local laws and your liability. 00;10;48;21 - 00;11;08;13 The interview. If you see them in a favorable light based on your contact during the showing, you may sit down right there at the house or go to a local coffee shop or go to your office if you have one. You can discuss their needs in renting the home. Find out where they work and get a feel for their stability in paying. 00;11;08;16 - 00;11;27;13 You can ask how long they have lived in the area. You can then prepare them for the next steps. Telling people with credit problems that you'll be running a credit check and checking rental references will generally cause them to bring up the issues right then and there, because they don't want to go through the application process for nothing. 00;11;27;15 - 00;11;46;12 If appropriate, take notes and ask your questions at this meeting. If they want time to think about it or express any hesitation, set up a phone call to check back with them in a day or two. You may or may not be able to get through your interview questions in this first meeting, but you can finish up on the phone. 00;11;46;15 - 00;12;18;13 It's a great feeling to have several interested tenants for a property. You could feel good about having choices and you can be selective. Once you have the right tenant selected, you can move on to the actual application and rental lease agreement. We found a great website that has a unique way of helping to sort and select tenants. The website is very fast.com www.verifast.com. 00;12;18;18 - 00;12;44;20 They have a really cool and unique way of selecting tenants and helping you decide who to use, so make sure you check it out. Action steps one. Contact your local newspaper for classified rates and any advertising frequency discounts you might get two. Familiarize yourself with online listing sites such as Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and whatever works in your area. 00;12;44;24 - 00;13;13;11 And check out some of the ads looking for local rentals. Three. Start working on a list of interview questions and make sure that their legal number four poster property for rent. Take some calls and practice. What's next? We're going to get into the paperwork and landlord tenant topics. We'll talk about deposits, rental and lease agreements, inspections, and more.