How to Advertise Your Unit

Housing providers face several challenges in today’s rental market. One of the many challenges a housing provider faces is how to market their rental unit while competing with other housing providers and making sure to follow the state or city laws. Housing providers find themselves asking a variety of questions like which website should I use to run my ad? What should be in the ad to attract responsible prospective tenants? What can be done to show that my ad is legit and not a scam?  

There are several websites that you can use to advertise your rental property. It’s best if you can place your ad on more than one website to give you a broader audience. Craigslist used to be the go-to when placing ads. Unfortunately, the Craigslist website is generally associated with scams and is being used less by prospective tenants to avoid being caught in scams.  

Many housing providers are using sites like Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, apartments.com or Facebook Marketplace  and there are so many more rental ad sites, these are just a few to mention. RHAWA has a membership forum for you to connect with other members. This is a great resource to ask other housing providers which rental ads sites or methods they use to advertise.  

Your ad should start by keeping your title simple but straight to the point. This gives viewers enough information to catch their attention. For example, start with $$$- #bd/#bth, the type of rental it is and what neighborhood it’s located in and specific amenities the rental offers.  

It goes without saying that grammar is going to be the number one component of assuring applicants that your ad is legit. Proofread for proper punctuation and capitalization, correct misspellings, typos, or transposed numbers.  

The ad should include a description that offers details about the surroundings of your rental property. How close is it to schools or the transit lines, stores, restaurants, and parks that surround the area? Many ads these days are using scores for the distance to walk, bike or bus to those surrounding businesses to give the prospective tenants a better scope to determine if the rental is a good fit.  

One of the best ways to entice and attract prospective tenants to your rental is by including photos into the ad. You’ll bring in more leads by having several photos. One photo isn’t 1,000-word worthy when it comes to showing off your rental. It might even be worth having the rooms set up with furniture to really show off how big the rooms are. Be sure to have clear photos and eliminate using any photos that are fuzzy. Show off the kitchen appliances, making sure the dishwasher, if present, is displayed in the photo along with the stove top and refrigerator. If applicable, the storage capabilities in each room. These days housing providers must stay a step ahead of scams. Before placing photos on other website rental pages be sure to watermark your photos to protect yourself from image theft.  This will also give some reassurance to your prospective tenants that you are mindful of security and scam prevention.  

Be sure to contact your leads ASAP and invite them to apply online. Speaking with the prospective tenants over the phone gives you an opportunity to ensure they understand your criteria and key rental terms:  
•    Did you read through the application and screening criteria notice? 
•    Do you have any questions or concerns about our criteria for income, credit history, rental history, or criminal history?
•    Do the move-in date and fees work for you? 
•    Do you plan to bring any animals into the home?
•    Will there be any smokers in the home?
•    Do you plan to have any other people living there besides yourself? 
 
This helps to weed out those who aren’t serious about renting and determine their lifestyle attributes like pets and smoking, giving the applicants a chance to self-select at this point. Remember, it’s the law in Washington that prospective tenants have seen your screening criteria before you begin to process their application. It’s a best practice to provide the screening criteria before you even give them access to your application. It also makes sense to require them to tour the home before you give access to the application. This way you can avoid processing applications for people who are not really interested or qualified.  

Another way to stay on top of who's applying is by using RHAWA’s screening tools. QuickApp is a screening portal that you can use for online screening. Through the system you provide an application link to your applicant. The applicant can complete the online application and pay the screening fee online. The member receives a notification email in the order the applications have been completed. In addition, when you log in to QuickApp, the applicants will also be in the order that they applied. You can choose where you would like to manage your applications in one place through your Screening Portal. It can all be done with ease with RHAWA's QuickApp.   

There’s confidence in knowing that you have a trustworthy ad by following the tips and techniques given. The process will be smooth and facilitate the ease of finding solid leads to care for your financial asset, your rental property.