What’s The Best Time of Year to Advertise Your Rental Property?

Vacancies can be costly, as such a key way to minimize these losses is to advertise at the right time of year. This means knowing the best time to rent a house, preparing your property for tenants, and advertising your unit on rental listing sites. Doing this you’ll also take advantage of the fact that there are more tenants looking to rent, meaning you’ll be able to find the ideal tenant for your property.

The best time for you to start advertising is actually the same time as most other landlords favor, also called peak rental season. The reason for this is there is more demand for units during certain months of the year, meaning you’re able to charge higher rates. Plus, if you have a desirable property, you’ll likely find that tenants are willing to commit immediately after viewing.

When Is The Best Time To Rent A House?

The best time to rent a house is the summer. Peak rental season runs from May to August. In fact, applications increase by more than 50 percent over these months compared to the winter.

There are several reasons people prefer moving in the summer. Firstly, the cold winter conditions make moving uncomfortable and icy conditions can be more challenging.

If you’re renting a single-family home, peak moving season ends abruptly right before the school year starts, as parents prefer to avoid disruptions in their kids’ schooling.

You’ll see similar trends if you’re renting an apartment in a college town, as students tend to need to secure housing before the semester begins. Finally, the summer allows you to rent to young professionals who have recently graduated from university and are now looking for new housing.

To take advantage of the peak season, learn what makes a good rental property and make sure yours has all these features before advertising it.

When Should You Start Advertising Your Rental Property?

Since the summer is the best time to rent, it follows that spring is the best time to start advertising. By listing in the spring, your rental will be one of the first to appear when forward-thinking tenants start their search. It will also gain more visibility than properties owned by landlords who are less organized.

If you currently have tenants, ask them if they intend to renew their lease. If they’ll be moving out, there’s no need to wait until they vacate the unit to list it. In fact, you should start advertising your property no less than 60 days before your current lease ends. Avoid complications with tenants changing their minds about leaving by requiring at least 60 days’ notice in the lease.

What Steps Should You Take to Get Renters During Peak Time?

Despite typically high demand in the summer, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find renters during the peak time if all you do is list the property. Plus, you may be on a different rent cycle if you were unaware of the concept of peak rent time before, a previous tenant broke a lease, or you needed to deal with an eviction. Whatever your situation, you can take steps to ensure your find renters during peak time now and going forward.

1. Enable Property Vacancy Cycles in the Summer Season

If your tenants’ current lease ends in the spring, fall, or winter, it’s worthwhile changing your rent cycle to offer summer leases.

One way to do this is to keep your property vacant until the summer. This could be a suitable option if your current tenants will be moving out in the spring, especially if your property could benefit from a renovation. However, this is likely not feasible if your current lease ends in the fall or winter, as you’ll lose a significant amount of income.

An alternative solution to waiting until the summer is to offer your next tenants a lease that lasts either 6 or 18 months rather than one year. Decide which would be more suitable for your situation and the type of tenants you want to attract.

2. Make Home Improvements in the Spring

Spring is an ideal time to make improvements to your rental. This is the case no matter if your unit will be vacant for a few weeks, you want to attract new tenants immediately after your current ones leave, or if you’re trying to incentivize current tenants to stay. A few things to consider doing include:

• Change the flooring — If it would be too expensive to redo the flooring of the entire property, choose a room that needs this the most. It will have a big impact on appearances.
• Painting — Walls need repainting regularly, and this is a good opportunity to change to a trending color.
• Kitchen cabinets — If the cabinets themselves are in good condition and just look worn out, painting them could be sufficient.

3. Consider Retaining Current Tenants

Moving is generally a stressful and expensive process for tenants. For landlords, the costs associated with advertising, managing showings and applications, tenant screening, and vacancies, often outweigh the benefits of replacing a new tenant (such as increasing the rent).

You can incentivize your current tenants to stay by telling them you’ll keep the rent the same or that you’ll charge them slightly below current market rates. Make sure you let them know early that you wish to renew the lease to stop them from searching for somewhere else to live. In addition, you can encourage tenants to stay by resolving any issues they have with the building and making improvements to amenities.

4. Advertise Your Property Online

Renters conduct much of their search for a new home by checking rental listing sites. Your rental won’t be seen by prospective tenants if you don’t have an online property listing.

For maximum exposure, your listing needs to be everywhere tenants are searching. Then you need to simply manage all the applications and select the most qualified tenants.

Landlord Studio now allows landlords to create their own custom website for their property. You can then paste the link on top listing sites such as Facebook Marketplace and collect all your applications through the system. Best of all, you can also prescreen, manage applicants within the app, and run tenant screening reports on the best applicants.

Since summer is the best time to rent a house, you have plenty of time to start preparing. If your tenants are about to move out, now is the ideal time to switch to a different length of lease. If you still have some time left on the lease, start thinking about your strategy: will you encourage your current tenants to stay longer or look for new tenants?

Final Words: The Best Time To Rent A House

When creating your rental listing you need to make sure you write a great header and description that highlights your property’s unique features and get professional quality photography to entice interest.

Whatever you decide, Landlord Studio will help you stay organized. As well as making it easier to list your rental property and find the ideal tenant, you can collect rent, track your income and expenses, and instantly generate any of our accountant-approved reports.

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