Renting News

Don’t Lose Rental Income On Your Vacation Home

donr — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:27:31 +0000

Have you ever dreamed about owning a beach house? My wife and I have talked about it many times and we are always looking at the prices to see if by magic they came down enough for us to afford one. Yesterday I spent a little time looking at homes for sale along the New Jersey shore.

While I would love to have a property just for my family to use, it would be too expensive not to rent it out on the weeks we were not using it. So I took look at the rental rents that people are charging. Many of the sites that offer rentals will show you what is available each week and how much you would have to pay. To my surprise, a lot of the weeks in most of the homes I checked were not rented! Even during June and July many homes were listed as available, but not rented for several weeks. Now a house for a week on the Jersey Shore can go for $2-4,000 and up. So to miss just one week is a huge amount of money.

During my search, I noticed several free classified ad sites were loaded with vacation homes for rent, yet some of the local paid sites only had a few listings. Anyone who has searched for a vacation home rental knows you can list your property on sites like VacationRentals.com for about $174 for the year. So why are these owners taking the chance in losing even one week’s worth of rent? Are they leaving it up to a realtor to “find” renters? Are they trying to “save” money?

My suggestion to anyone who owns a vacation rental is to develop a system that works for getting your rental completely booked every year. Start off by using every resource possible to advertise your property. Then refine your advertising to the handful of services that work the best.

Here are a few examples of creative ways to find tenants:

· One landlord I know advertises his oceanfront home on the local radio station. My mother-in-law heard the ad and we rented his property one year.

· At the last company I worked for, we had a free classified ad page where employees could list there items for sale. Several people rented their homes using the online list.

· At my wife’s company, it is not uncommon to get an email from someone with tickets for a ball game or even a home for sale. A lot of her co-workers have sold things this way.

· Contacting people who have rented from you in the past may also be the answer. Ask them if they would like to rent or know anyone who would. Offer them a discount.

Please share any ideas you have to keep your vacation home rented.

Will Cuil help rent properties faster?

donr — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:37:26 +0000

I took a quick look at Cuil today, the new search engine started by former Google employees. So far, it looks pretty good for RentalsOnline.com. We are already getting traffic from them and the site comes up on the first page when searching for rentals in a lot of cities.

Generally, their results appear a bit off right now. Some don’t make sense, others are right on. Also, the three-column layout is interesting, but feels a bit disorganized. The small thumbnails are nice, but take a long time to load and are distracting when trying to find something fast.

Overall, Cuil has a lot of work to do, but they seem to be headed in the right direction. The addition of a new search engine is welcome and will certainly offer another source of web traffic that will help even the distribution of visitors coming from other sites.

Rentalads.com displays Apartments.com ads

donr — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:34:02 +0000

I noticed the other day that Rentalads.com is displaying listings from Apartments.com. It will be interesting to see if that helps them or hurts them. The added content from the listings should improve their results in the search engines and possibly with property managers, but the ads take renters away from their site.

RentalsOnline new email form

donr — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:56:49 +0000

A small change was made to the email form on RentalsOnline.com. It is now placed at the top of the actual listing page where renters can type a quick note to the landlord. This makes it even easier for renters to inquire about an ad.

The updated form now includes a “captcha” that requires a renter to enter simple text from a random image. This helps to prevent spam. I have to admit we were a little behind some of the other top rental sites on this change, however this is another feature that sets us apart from many of the classified ad type sites.

Interesting results in Google

donr — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:42:17 +0000

Google does a lot of interesting things with their search results. You never really know what to expect they will include. I did a search for the word “moving” and came up with this set of images above any website listings. It is not really what I would have expected to see and unusual for this search term. But I guess they want to get more people to use their image search. Our site gets a lot of visitors from Google images but I did not realize they were presenting them in results like this.

Are you telling renters what they want to know?

donr — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:34:52 +0000

I just finished an interview with a reporter from Real Estate Weekly about an article they are writing on “tips for renters”. We discussed a lot of the important topics that renters should be aware of when they are ready to move. As a landlord and property manager for many years, I was able to provide some great examples of questions that renters ask or should ask. We have a bunch of articles for renters on RentalsOnline.com, but here are a few of the topics important to renters that I want to highlight:

Make sure you will get a signed lease and understand everything that is in it.
Always complete a walkthrough of the actual rental before leasing. Document any issues before moving in.
Be aware of all financial obligations prior to signing a lease (such as rent, utilities and other expenses you may incur).
Have an agreement with roommates about living conditions and responsibilities before moving in together. Ask the landlord about the option of subleasing.
Keep your eyes open for any safety concerns. Check that all door and window locks are working, lighting is good the neighborhood looks safe.
Understand who is responsible for minor repairs and maitenance.

These are some of the major points that a tenant will want to know about before they choose a new place to live. As a landlord, you need to make sure you are prepared to respond. Also, try to answer some of these questions in your online ads either in your description or through photos. The more questions you can answer up front, the faster the process will be to filling your vacancy.

Thanks to Ben from Real Estate Weekly for talking with me. When I find out when the article is published, I will provide an update.

Investing in real estate is still a smart choice

donr — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:34:55 +0000

My financial consultant called me yesterday to let me know a mutual fund I had was not doing well. We agreed to sell the position and move it to a more conservative investment as the financial markets continue to be volatile. Times like this make me glad I invested in rental property many years ago. Even though real estate values have declined recently, the steady rental income and long term gains during the past two decades have been very profitable.

I think the way my family has had success with owning many rentals over the years is from managing the properties wisely. Keeping the homes in good condition, making sure rent is always collected and not allowing the properties to be vacant are probably the most important aspects. In this blog, I attempt to share my 20 years of experience renting homes especially about the third point, keeping your properties rented. So bookmark this page to keep learning how you can make the most of your investment real estate.

Many landlords still don’t advertise online

donr — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:24:21 +0000

I had a great conversation with a landlord from Mississippi who had several rental properties she wanted to advertise. She needed some help getting her ads posted because she lived in a very rural area and did not have high speed Internet access. The women informed me that in the past she would always advertise her rentals in her local newspapers, but they were no longer getting her enough leads.

That is no surprise. There are various reports that project the penetration of US households with high speed Internet access at 50-60% and growing. However, this tells me that there are still a lot of landlords who are missing out on the power of advertising their vacancies online. It also says that landlords and property managers who do advertise online will be getting an even bigger boost in the years to come as more and more renters get broadband access and start searching online.

I am happy I was able to help this landlord transition her advertising to the Internet. Now she will gain access to a much broader audience of renters and can reactivate her ads next year with just a few clicks.

Finding tenants in competitive rental markets

donr — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:16:50 +0000

Driving around the Orlando area, I could not help but notice how much new construction of timeshares and vacation homes was going on. We stayed in Kissimmee, about 10 minutes from Disney and there were hundreds of condos and townhouses just in our development. Many of these homes were clearly vacant while we were there, even though the weather was great (75-80 degrees).

Still, there were several new developments being built right down the street. Granted the area is a vacation hot spot for people all over the world, I have to wonder if owning a rental in an area like this is a good investment.

The competition for renters is tough since many of these homes are exactly the same, so minor features can mean the difference between filling a vacancy or not. We looked at three homes and settled on one because it was a few dollars less and very close to the clubhouse. Another owner sent along several testimonials from previous satisfied renters that also went a long way with us.

I would guess that if one of these homes was rented every week, it would be a very profitable investment. But missing out on numerous weeks throughout the year could be costly. Using some creativity and explaining the unique benefits of choosing one rental over others could be all that is needed to keep renters calling. It also would not hurt to have lots of quality advertising to make sure renters can will find the property.

How much capital gains tax will you pay?

donr — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:08:17 +0000

I am here in Florida just before the presidential primary takes place and the political ads are in abundance. One that I have found very interesting is for John McCain where he promises to make the Bush capital gains tax cut permanent.

Why is this important for rental property owners? Well I had a conversation with my tax accountant several weeks ago about the tax impact of selling one of my rental properties. She informed me that that the sale of my property would result in a long term capital gain. The next president will be in position to make this tax break permanent, or eliminate it. Removal of this tax advantage would make the sale of an investment property taxed at the highest rate.

Keep your eyes open for which candidates are in favor of keeping the tax cut. It will have a huge impact on your future capital gains.