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ContinueLearn where to advertise your property for rent so you can maximize your listing's exposure, reduce expensive vacancies, and find great tenants fast.
It used to be that advertising your rental property required getting yard signs made, taking classified ads out in the local paper, and putting up for rent signs in your windows. Thankfully, with the adoption of digital services and apps, there are a whole load more options for advertising apartments and houses for rent.
In this article, we explore some of the best places to advertise your rental property and how you can leverage third-party services like Landlord Studio to streamline your rental property advertising processes even further.
This article outlines the top websites to showcase your vacant property and get as many eyeballs as possible. With Gen Z now in the age range of finding rental properties and being inextricably online, you’ll have the perfect opportunity to amplify your knowledge on how to rent out a house via the web.
Top tip: If you’re looking to list your property on multiple channels why not explore rental listing syndication services?
For example, create a free rental listing with Landlord Studio and instantly share it across top channels including Zillow, Zumper, Trulia, and Hotpads with the click of a button.
Increase your rental listing exposure and find great tenants fast. Plus, you can even prescreen leads, collect rental applications, and run tenant screening reports.
Learn more about listing your rental property with Landlord Studio here.
Coming in at number one is, of course, the most popular rental listing site, Zillow. With its extensive database of more than 135 million listings for renting and buying, many find themselves looking here due to its sheer breadth of property listings. Also, Zillow has a very user-friendly walkthrough system whereby any landlord can learn how to rent out a house via the web.
Boasting a mobile app, landlords have easy access to edit their listings on the go to ensure they’re able to update their listings, communicate with and screen applicants as well as collecting rent payments. In addition, Zillow allows landlords to publish their listings and highlight essential amenities that can be filtered through based on the preferences of a prospective renter, e.g., allowing certain pets to live at the property.
This listing site is well-known for its user-friendly interface. Upon entering a neighborhood or zip code, a renter will be able to see listings and their respective rents on an interactive map within the area they’re looking for.
Cost: As of May 2022, it’s free to post your rental listings to Zillow Rental Manager. However, if you want to upgrade your experience and increase your listing's exposure you can opt for a premium listing which costs a flat fee of $29.99. This gives you premium listing benefits for up to 90 days.
While not as plentiful as Zillow, Apartments.com will still try to maximize a landlord’s listing potential. As renters must pay for each application, a landlord will be assured that a renter is looking at their listing carefully if they are to apply.
Furthermore, the landlord’s life is made simpler with Apartments.com’s helpful mobile app that qualifies renters based on many map overlays to refine searches that are indeed what the renter is looking for. Conversely, such a behemoth of a system requires frequent software updates, which can be bothersome for some.
Cost: Similarly to Zillow, listing your rental on Apartment.com is free. However, this is only true for small portfolio landlords. If you have more than 5 units you will need to buy an ad package. Apartments.com does not disclose their pricing tiers.
Related: 11 Alternatives to Cozy For Managing Your Rental Listings
Zumper allows landlords to quickly upload listings along with pictures and video tours of the property. Also included are live tours, where applicants can request a walkthrough of the property prior to applying. Similar to the aforementioned services, refinements can be applied to ensure the renter is getting the property they desire, e.g. recent listings, lifestyle, income restrictions, locations, and more.
While Zumper is available in both the United States and Canada it isn’t quite as ubiquitous as the other platforms on this list with a slightly smaller amount of traffic to their site.
Cost: Much like Apartments.com and Zillow, Zumper allows landlords to advertise their properties for rent for free on their platform. However, you also have the option to purchase a premium subscription if you choose. Promoted rental listings with Zumper start at $50 per month.
While Craiglist still gathers many leads for leases, there are many drawbacks to having such a popular site. Spamming is common with Craigslist rental listings as there is the possibility to post duplicate listings with no restrictions.
Although Craigslist has addressed this problem, there have been issues where legitimate listings have been snagged as spam and thus are “ghosted” or ignored by the algorithm and fail to show up in search results. Furthermore, the site is also aware of a repeated listing of the same property under different accounts – this can also lead to a “ghosting.”
Cost: Craigslist is well-known for being a free listing site. A landlord is not expected to pay a cent when advertising their unit; however, there is a $10 charge for brokered apartment rentals in the NYC area.
The final item on our list of best places to advertise an apartment for rent is Facebook Marketplace. When thinking about how to rent out a house, you don’t have to just go straight for the big online listing sites. Social media can be a great way to boost your property’s visibility for free. Additionally, sites like Facebook allow you to increase exposure with ads.
If you don’t want to spend money on ads, Facebook Marketplace offers an entirely free solution to create a listing which has become increasingly popular over recent years. In fact in a recent study we conducted, over 30% of landlords found their last tenant on Facebook Marketplace (only beaten out by Zillow).
Considering that almost everybody has a Facebook account, it is a convenient place for people to quickly and easily search for potential restaurant listings in an area.
Plus, with their built-in communication systems handling inquiries is made reasonably simple. However, it’s also less regulated than some of the more tailored platforms such as Zillow, Zumper, or Apartments.com. As such, landlords should be wary of low-quality applicants and potential scams.
Cost: Facebook Marketplace is free to list your property. However, if you do choose to create and run ads to increase interest and leads then you will have to pay for each impression that your ad gets so it can quickly become one of the more expensive options.
Top tip: Copy and paste your Landlord Studio listing URL into your Facebook Marketplace listing and automatically prescreen your leads, weed out time-wasters and quickly identify top applicants.
This article very well could have been pages long considering the number of rental listing sites and apps out there; however, to keep the list succinct we’ve focused on only the most popular platforms. Each of these platforms is well-reviewed with thousands if not millions of users each month. As such, your rental property is likely to do with whichever channel you select from the list above.
Finally, if you’re looking for ways to make advertising your property for rent and finding tenants easier, Landlord Studio may be the solution for you.
Create a free rental listing with Landlord Studio and automatically share it across multiple top channels including Zillow and Zumper. Plus, easily share your unique listing URL on Facebook to collect and prescreen leads and quickly identify top prospects.
Once you’ve collected leads, streamline the rest of the tenant selection flow, collect rental applications, and run comprehensive tenant screening reports.
Make sure you have all the information you need to make an informed tenant selection decision. Reduce costly vacancies without the hassle with tools designs for you.
Other Landlord Studio features you might like: collect rent online, store documents, set personal reminders, manage tenant comms, track and prioritize maintenance requests, and track all of your income and expenses. All in one place - all for free.
Landlord Studio is an easy to use property management and accounting software designed for landlords.
Find and screen tenants, collect rent online, track income and expenses, run reports, and more - all for free.
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