In this short video, we’ll give you five tips for how to find good tenants to rent your property and keep them.

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Tip #1: Set Realistic Expectations

The first tip for how to find good tenants for a rental house or apartment is to set realistic expectations. In general, you can expect to get your property rented within 30 days after putting it on the market. Within 30 days you should either have a tenant moving in or a signed lease for someone moving in in the next couple of days.

Tip #2: Use Lots of Photos

The second tip for finding good renters is to use lots of photos in your postings. The reason to do this is that you want to give your prospects as much information as possible. You can see in the pictures in the video [1:55] that it's very bright. You can see clearly the kitchen, the quartz countertops, the cabinets, the stainless appliance package, the recessed lighting. All that's very detailed. You want pictures of every room in the house so that the prospective tenant knows exactly what to expect and has all the information they need to make a decision. Also, you want to show photos up and down the streets so the tenant has an idea of what the neighborhood looks like.

Tip #3: Check Out the Competition

If you want to find good tenants to rent your property, it’s important to check out the competition. Don't just post things online in a vacuum. Go to a rental site like Zillow or Redfin or Realtor.com and see what other landlords are doing.

You’ll see an example from a search I did in Ocala, Florida. I clicked for rent, and I set the filter to three bedroom two bath houses, singlefamily homes, and new. See how many properties there are like the one I'm trying to get rented. You see there's 36. Now, Ocala has a population of 65,000, which is a fairly goodsized city. 36 results isn't terrible, but it's not ideal either. You have competition.

You then have to ask yourself what rent range is realistic. In the example, you’ll notice the rent ranges from $1,775, $1,795, and $1,845, so roughly somewhere about $1,800 a month on average. That's the rent range you want to be considering. That's the information and the intel you get by checking out the competition online. You’ll need to look at several sites just to see what's out there.

Tip #4: Price it Right

Tip number four is to take that information and price it right. You want to avoid likely tenant rent caps. For example, when a prospective tenant is looking on Zillow they mat set the price range to a max of $1,800. If you were to list your property for $1,825 you're going to miss out on a ton of potentially good tenants for your property because if they're screening on $1,800 and lower. These tenants are not even going to see your property. If you consider the difference between $1,795 and $1,825, it's only like $30 a month. It may sound like a lot, but it's nothing compared to what you're going to lose.

The mistake I see investors make is they ask the property manager the wrong question. They ask, "What should we rent it for?" The property manager is trying to do what's right for the investor and trying to tell the investor what he wants to hear, so he says, "Oh, we can get $1,825 or maybe $1,850, even." That's the wrong question. What you should ask is, "What is the 30day price? What do we have to list it at so that the property rents within 30 days?" That takes some pressure off the property manager because they know they don't have to get the max rent, they just need to rent it quickly. Once you tell them that, then they can give you a more realistic number so you can price it correctly.

Tip #5: Post on All Rental Site

The final tip for how to find good tenants is to post your home on all rental sites. These include Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Redfin, and of course, the property manager's own site. Trulia is owned by Zillow, so I don't know how much difference there is but you never know. Maybe some tenants will look at Trulia and not think to look at Zillow. Some property managers only list it on their site, and I think that's a mistake because most tenants have never heard of your property manager's company and won't think to look there. For every one that finds it on your property manager’s site, there's probably a hundred that'll find it on Zillow. You want to tell your property manager to post it everywhere.

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