How To Add Personality To Your Property Listings

There are numerous sites dedicated to helping potential tenants find rental properties, and competition on them is fierce – 84% of renters turn to the Internet to find their next apartment or house. So when a potential tenant is scrolling through the hundreds upon hundreds of property listings in your area, it’s absolutely essential that you take the necessary steps to make yours stand out. You don’t want other landlords in the area getting all the attention just because they took advertising their property more seriously. Here’s how you can make your rental property listing catch the eye of your next tenant.­

Photos, photos, photos!

Seeing is believing, and taking photos seriously can make or break your ability to get a consistent flow of tenants in your property. You don’t want to go overboard by taking pictures of every single minute detail of your house, but as a general rule, the more photos on property listings, the better. Make sure the entirety of your property is represented in your listing. When preparing to take pictures, it should be as clean and bright as possible: turn on all the lights, and open those blinds! Taking pictures without proper lighting will yield drab results. Strongly consider hiring a professional photographer who has a trained eye for attractive angles, a good camera, and the skills to make the photos pop. If you can’t hire a professional photographer, do your best to make it look like you did.

Additional Reading: Renting to a New Generation: Are You Ready?

Mention the best feature up front.

In a time when advertisers vie for consumers’ attention spans, you have to think the same way. When apartment-seekers are looking at a screen of dozens of property listings, they’re not going to deeply inspect each and every one. Whatever your property’s best selling point is, mention it as soon as possible. Whether it includes a detached garage, boasts an enviable location for public transportation or nightlife, or has a wonderful master bath, put it at the end of the title after listing the basics of the property (rent, number of rooms and bathrooms, etc.). Once you’ve piqued the reader’s interest, return to the point in the description by fully explaining what makes it (and your property!) so great.

What’s nearby?

Tenants don’t just pay rent for the property itself; they’re also paying for location. Commute time can affect rent prices by hundreds of dollars. Forgetting this aspect of property management when making your property listings can prove to be a major setback. The good news is that many landlords do forget to include this point, which means you can stand out all the more. Mention how far away public transportation stops are, especially if they’re not far away at all! Things like nearby parks, grocery stores, and attractive bars and restaurants should be essential for any listing. You should also highlight local features based on your target renter population – if your target renters are traditional college students, walking distance to the university will be much more relevant than nearby elementary schools.

Don’t just throw silly superlatives around.

As soon as the viewer reads a cliché or heavy sales talk, they’ll likely scroll down to the next listing. Use colorful, enticing language, but don’t sound like someone that you wouldn’t want to listen to. The moment you go too heavy on the advertising lingo, the reader is more likely to take your words with a grain of salt, even when you aren’t embellishing anything. Remember that viewers are looking for brevity, so one of the most important things to remember when writing up a property listing is to convey information first and foremost. Don’t write a sentence that the listing could do without – make sure every sentence counts.

Additional Reading: Struggling to find renters? A broker might be worth the investment

Be mindful where you’re sending them.

It’s a good idea to include a link to your website on any property listings you post and to note that more information is available there. This will drive tenants towards your site, where you can not only better control the flow of information, but also expose them to more properties! That way, if the one they’re interested in doesn’t work out, they can easily find another like it that you have to offer. So if you haven’t already taken time to improve your rental website, we strongly suggest you do so.

And don’t forget, attracting more tenants to your property listing isn’t just good for your occupancy rate – it’s good for your stress level too. More candidates means better renters. And better renters means… well, you get the idea. So, take some time, put in the effort, and improve those listings!

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