For owners and operators of rental properties out there, there is an announcement.
If you believe that digital marketing will make it easier to find tenants for your rental property, you need to know the whole truth.
It doesn’t mean that the traditional methods of marketing real estate are better. Digital marketing offers beneficial tools and techniques for real estate investments.
Digital marketing has made it possible for today’s property investors to do things their predecessors, two decades ago, could not even imagine.
With digital marketing systems, rental property owners and operators gain the following advantages:
Fully democratized tools:
Investors no longer have to deal with gatekeepers like radio stations, newspapers, and advertising agencies to get the word out about their rentals.
A more level playing field:
It lowers the cost of advertising. As a result, smaller players can market themselves to look as big as established investors.
Increased reach:
With the click of a mouse or on a small handheld device, it is possible to reach hundreds of thousands of people at once.
Micro-targeting is possible:
Investors can define their target demographic to the tiniest details to maximize the impact of every advertising dollar.
But here is the problem.
No matter how powerful a tool is, when everyone has access to it, the comparative advantage anyone would have enjoyed by using it is eroded.
What makes a tool special is its exclusivity. If everybody has access to it, then no one is special. Having access to what others lack is what gives you the advantage over others.
And therein lies the challenge of marketing your rental property today.
What you must do more if you want to succeed
It is harder to successfully market your rental property in a digital environment than when using traditional marketing.
How is that?
The level of noise in a digital marketing environment is immense. There is a limit to the number of ads a newspaper can display on its pages. However, this is not the case with the internet.
The result?
Your prospective tenants have several choices. Like in all situations where people have arrays of options, their expectations have become very high.
Renters are no longer content with seeing pictures of a home on the screens of their digital devices and visiting the home afterward to decide on whether to rent it or not.
They want to be able to make that decision right from the screen of their phones. They want the home to be presented in such details that they can almost touch it.
Potential tenants will often choose homes that are more engaging over rental properties whose owners cannot keep up with this new normal.
What can you do about this? How can you make your rental property ads so compelling that your target audience regularly pauses their browsing to find out more about the home?
Staging to rent: Why it is the next frontier in rental property marketing
The answer is; stage your rental before you list it. What is staging? Why is it a good strategy for making your rental rent faster, earn more money, and get higher quality tenants?
Staging to rent
When most rental property owners advertise their rental, they do so with pictures of empty rooms. But when you stage to rent, you put the home in a move-in-ready state before you advertise it.
That means filling the rental with furniture, décor, and other items that give it the appearance that someone resides in the property. Why is this a great way to market your rental property?
The answer is; stage your rental before you list it. What is staging? Why is it a good strategy for making your rental rent faster, earn more money, and get higher quality tenants?
1) It is comfy:
It is hard to convey a sense of how comfortable a home can be when the rooms are bare. But staging the rental helps to create a homey feeling.
2) Facilitates emotional connections:
Most renters decide to rent a house based on how comfortable they feel inside. Whatever creates that feeling of homeliness will help customers make decisions faster.
3) Inspire renters:
Staging a rental home before you advertise helps prospective tenants see its potential. The design inspires them with ideas for how to arrange the house.
4) Outshine the competition:
The images of a staged rental will stand out from those of an unstaged rental because your prospective tenants will find the first set of pictures more evocative.
What is the impact of staging for rent on the performance of a rental property?
A. Increases the home’s value:
Renters instinctively place more significance on the house if you stage it.
B. Attract higher-quality tenants:
This means the property will attract more affluent renters.
C. Long-term renters:
Also, the renters who find a staged rental appealing are often tenants looking for long-term accommodations.
D. Improved earnings:
This will impact the turnover and vacancy rate for the home and improve its profits immensely.
On the whole, rental operators who stage their homes do more than their competitors are willing
to do. As a result, they also get more than other investors get.