E-Renter News

RentBits.com recently conducted a survey of over 1,000 renters. The results show few surprises, but it’s good to know what your tenants—and potential tenants expect!

First, an astounding 72% of renters start searching for their new rental home or apartment online. If you’re not advertising with the online rental search engines, Craigslist.com, and your local news site’s online classifieds, you’re probably missing the majority of your market. And do advertise on as many as you can. 93% of searchers look at 2 sites, and 25% search on more than 10 sites.

And not only do they start the search through Google or Bing or Yahoo’s search engines, rather than going straight to the rental site or Craigslist, they are using specific keyword phrases. For example, a typical rental housing search will begin with the person entering “St. Louis apartment pets $650.” So make sure your ad headline includes what people are searching for. Don’t use “For Rent” or “Apartment For Rent” as your headline.

Price and location continue to be the most important factors to potential tenants. Then they look for photos, lease terms, deposit amount, whether pets are allowed, and if there is a washer and dryer included. Be sure to include plenty of photos of your rental unit—especially the bathrooms, kitchen, and closets. Multiple photos keep people on the site longer and get more attention. They also get more click-throughs, where instead of leaving the site, the user takes action, like asking for more information.

Be responsive—potential tenants expect a response to their inquiry—whether made by telephone or online—within 24 hours.

Houses are more in demand than apartments, according to 83% of respondents. It could be because of the many foreclosed homeowners who are back in the rental market. With more apartment inventory than ever, that’s not the best news for apartment property owners and managers!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010 at and is filed under Property Management Trends, Rental and Housing Markets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.