All online rental ads are not created equal
In fact, many factors determine whether a rental ad will be successful at attracting renter leads. With so much information and so many choices on the internet, rental marketers need to make sure their ads catch – and hold – the attention of potential renters.
This week, we’re highlighting one of our members’ ads that received over 40 phone and email leads in one month… 40! For those who like to keep track of the numbers, that’s less than a buck a lead (Single-family rental ad = $29.99). Let’s breakdown the strong points of this ad that helped to make it a success:
- Photos
- Competitive Rental Rates
- Low Deposit or Incentives
- Widespread Distribution
- Easy to Contact
Read more about each of these 5 rental advertising tips
Rentals Posted to Twitter Will Soon Show Up in Google
Are you tweeting your available apartment rentals and house rentals on Twitter?
Some may argue against this, but with the recent announcement of the Google-Twitter search deal and the Bing-Twitter search deal, tweeting your available rentals will now deliver one heaping advertising advantage — search engine exposure.
Let’s take a closer look:
If Google and Bing search results are now going to pull in tweets, don’t you think it’s a good idea for you to get your rental listings in Twitter? For example, if a renter searches for “San Diego Apartments” in Google you may now see some tweets in the Google search results that relate to this search, similar to what you see here http://search.twitter.com/search?q=san+diego+apartments. It will be interesting to see how Google displays the rental specific tweets in their search results. Will the tweets display within their regular search or will it be a side option? Will Google be able to filter out all the spam such as what you see in the hijacked Twitter trending topics? I hope so.
So, if you are not already tweeting your available rentals, now’s a better time than any to start.
Remember, RentShout offers a 1-click social network sharing option that allows you to easily share your rental listings on Twitter and other social networks.
Tax Benefits for Landlords
The most outstanding among its benefits of being a Landlord and the one which makes the profession attractive to many is the fact that landlords get tremendous tax benefits:
- Landlords get a portion of the cost of their rental property back through depreciation, which is spread out or amortized over a number of years.
- The expenses landlords incur when making necessary repairs or needed improvement to their rental property are deductible in full during the year in which they occurred. Such expenses may include costs of repainting (indoors and/or outdoors), replacing flooring, fixing a leaking roof, unclogging sewer lines, replacing damaged doors or broken windows and so on.
- Landlords pay interest on mortgage loans for the rental property, on loans taken for paying the costs of improvements to the rental property, and on open balances of credit cards that are used for maintaining the rental property. The expenses of these interests (regardless of their rates) are all deductible from the landlords’ total income. So, his or her income taxes are paid at lower rates. Since expenses for interests are often extremely high, deductions for interest are also among the highest deduction landlords can claim.
- Landlords are permitted to deduct their expenses for automotive traveling on any business related to their rental property. These expenses refer to those sustained during driving to and from the location — gas as well as the vehicle’s upkeep and repair. Under certain circumstances; car rentals, airfare and expenses on public transportation (buses, trains, trolleys, subways, ferries, etc.) may be considered legitimate business deductions for tax purposes.
Track and Capture Renter Phone Leads
We are excited to announce the release of trackable listing phone numbers! At RentShout, we are continually seeking out ways to improve the tracking and exposure for our members’ rental ads, and the unique listing phone numbers is the latest tool in our shed to help accomplish that. RentShout now provides every listing, apartment unit, and apartment community with its own unique phone number, allowing advertisers to better track their overall ROI.
When a call is made to this phone number, our system will automatically forward it to your phone number, enabling the renter to connect with the right person immediately. For easy tracking and convenience, the call information is also saved in your RentShout message center.
Rental Advertising Services – A Goldmine For Investors
Online rental advertising services are essential for serious real estate investors. The key to making money in real estate is to buy the property and let the renters pay off the loan. So if you have several apartments, you would want to keep them fully rented at all times. Online rental advertising services are being used by rich investors to market their apartments.
Rental advertising websites provide the maximum exposure for your property to renters. The rental industry is huge so getting your ad in front of prospects require a lot of effort if you were to do it using traditional methods.
The following are the types of services which rental advertising companies offer:
1. Submission to rental directories and search engines.
One of the main services of apartment marketing websites is submitting your rental ad to its network of rental directories and search engines. The first thing a renter would do to find the ideal apartment is to search online.
Rental directories receive a lot of targeted traffic. Once you’re listed there, you will get renters seeing your ad with your contact details. The more rental directories your ad is submitted to, the more chances of renters seeing your ad.
If you’re choosing a rental website, make sure that the company has a network of rental directories to broadcast your rental ads to.
As well as rental directories, your rental ads will also be submitted to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. With your web page consisting of just your ad, listed on several search engines, you will get a considerable amount of targeted visitors.
Needless to say, search engine traffic can bring you hundreds of renters to your rental every day.
2. Video Syndication
One of the most interesting features that rental websites offer is video syndication. The company will create a video to market your apartments using images that you provide.
So after you take pictures of every corner of your apartment, you can upload them to the website and have a professional marketing video created for you. The videos are basically a slide presentation of your apartment with background music.
When renters watch a video of the inside of an apartment, they would find it much more attractive than reading plain text. So videos do increase the response rate to the rental ads tremendously.
Apart from producing the video, the company will also submit it to several video sharing websites such as YouTube and Viddler. These video sharing sites get a lot of searches every day and they also rank well in the search engines.
Creating and submitting the videos by yourself would take many hours.
3. Social Media
Another place where renters can be found is social media sites. Unless you’re living under a rock, you would have heard of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and others. These social websites are an excellent way to market your apartments.
People in these social networks interact amongst each other. If someone sees an ad for an apartment, they would pass on the message to people they know who are looking to rent.
With a broadcast of your rental ad to these social networks, you can expect to receive responses from interested renters quickly.
As you can see, rental advertising websites are a must if you’re looking to find renters for your apartment. The amount of exposure you will get from your ads is much more than traditional methods of contacting agents and placing classified ads. Finding renters for your apartment has never been so easy.
