Landlords, property managers, brokers and renters can all understand the frustration around apartment showing and apartment viewings. Especially for renters who specifically take time out of your days to view apartments, as you would do in competitive rental markets such as New or San Francisco, the last thing anyone wants is to waste their time viewing an apartment not fit for showing.
Unfortunately, many landlords, property managers, brokers, and renters bear this pain. ManageCasa is helping deliver a few key steps and tips to make ensure successful, future apartment showings.
1. Clarify Lease Termination Policies
The first step to successful apartment or open house showings is knowing when they will happen. This will help you understand the amount of time you or your team will invest in showing apartments or homes the next two weeks, month, two months, and also gives you ample time to conduct many showings. Make sure to clearly state in the lease the terms of lease termination and the fees associated in case this is not followed. If your tenants are not proactive, you can actively reach out to check in if you know a certain property or unit lease is about to end in the coming months.
2. Set Open House Dates in Advance
Give your current tenants ample notice that there will be showings while they may or may not be home. Be sure to block out an ample amount of days and a large time range where the tenant is willing to show the unit or property. Another possibility is to establish the amount of notice the broker , landlord, or property manager needs to give in advance of conducting a showing.
3. Open a Direct Line of Communication
Directly related to the tip above – Setting open house dates in advance – landlords and property managers need an easy, effective communication method to get in touch with tenants, potentially create shared calendars, and definitely a channel to give short notices for showings. ManageCasa’s communication tools will be exactly what you need, especially if your tenants are already using it for payments, maintenance tasks, etc.
4. Give Guidelines on Expectations
Prospective tenants experience sometimes experience poor showings as current tenants don’t prepare or clean up in advance, leaving a bad impression on the prospective tenant. Your job is to clearly communicate the task(s) to current tenants in terms of preparing for apartment or property showings. This mainly pertains to, but exclusive to: cleaning the property and caging any pets. So make sure you communicate expectations and guidelines with the current tenants as soon as possible.
5. Offer Gifts or Incentives
You have much more at stakes for conducting a successful showing than your current tenants. Tenants may not be the most cooperative or responsive. One way to combat this is to offer small gifts or incentives for tenants who do help you conduct a successful showing. Some ideas may be to offer a cleaning service a few days leading up to when you plan to have many showings or providing small monetary discounts for tenants who are able to bring in new tenant(s).
