Get It Rented

In this technique- and idea-filled book, Robert Cain brings his 30 years of property management training and publishing experience to show how to use effective and usually inexpensive on-going rental marketing techniques.  These techniques entice the most qualified applicants to respond to that marketing and that the best tenants not only want to continue renting from a landlord but also tell their friends about the great place they live. You will find templates of marketing forms and examples you can use right away and easy systems for keeping track of how your marketing is doing.

Introduction.
Chapter One: What Marketing Is, Why You Might Care, and How It Affects Renting Property.
Chapter Two: Packaging Yourself:  Setting Yourself Apart
Chapter Three: Packaging Your Property.
Chapter Four: Do the Opposite.
Chapter Five: Know Your Market
Chapter Six: Advertising.

• How to write a good ad.
• Classified ad in community newspapers.
• Advertising on rental websites.

Chapter Seven: Other Even More Effective and  Cheaper Types of Marketing.

• Part One:  How to Use Flyers to Get a Property Rented.
• Part Two: Buy mailing list and mail about your property.
• Part Three: Get local merchants to put your flyer in their bags.
• Part Four: Detailed flyers to hand to prospects.
• Part Five: The Benefits Sheet
• Part Six: Set Up a Facebook Page.

Chapter Eight: The Telephone and the Public.

• Part One: Answering the Telephone.
• Part Two: Meeting the Public and Prospective Tenants.
• Part Three:  Complete Instructions for Holding a Super-Duper, Whiz-Bang Rental Open House
• Part Four:  One More Trick for Presenting the Property.

Chapter Nine: The Most Cost-Effective Kind of Marketing:   Keeping Good Tenants.
Chapter Ten: Salesmanship.
Chapter Eleven: Fair Housing and Marketing.
Chapter Twelve: Fair Housing Basics.

Introduction

The Census Bureau published “The Property Owners and Managers Survey” several years ago in which it analyzed rental owners and rental properties. The study found that “Overall, 58 percent of multifamily properties made a profit or broke even. About 27 percent had a loss, and for 16 percent the owners did not know whether they made or lost money. About 58 percent of small and medium size properties had a profit or broke even, compared to 51 percent of large properties.”  Think of that; just over half of multifamily properties did not lose money.

Notice the figures are for making a profit or breaking even.  We can deduce from that that fewer than half of the rental owners made an actual profit.  But a telling figure is that 16 percent of owners, one in six, had no clue if they made any money or not (and they’re in business?).

I heard one thing consistently in the 25 years I traveled around the country giving speeches and seminars and conducting trainings for rental property owners and managers,  “I can’t get enough good tenants.”  That puzzled me because some 95 percent or more of tenants fall into the “good” category, and they are going to live somewhere.  What were these rental owners doing or not doing that kept them from getting top-notch applicants?

Why they didn’t draw enough, or any,  “good tenants” who wanted to rent their properties? As I eventually sorted out, it was because of poor marketing.  They simply had no clue about how to do a proper job of it. In fact, the one thing they did do is the least effective method, and they didn’t even do that well.

I have been a student of marketing for over 25 years and wrote about marketing tips and tricks regularly in the Rental Property Reporter, which I published until 2014. I have put marketing articles, teleseminars, and material from seminars together into one place, and added and edited so they flowed logically and well to create Get It Rented.

It answers all the marketing questions I can think of, though in spite of my obsession with trying to think of everything, I might have missed one or two. I organized them logically in an easy-to-read, technique-filled book.  It includes templates and forms that I will make available on one of my websites for those who are wise, or desperate, enough to buy the book.

So what are those rental owners doing wrong?  Why aren’t all of them ahead of the game?  Why aren’t good tenants flocking to them, making the phone ring off the hook, clamoring to see these owners’ properties? One of the reasons is sloppy, indifferent or even NO marketing.

Here’s how to adjust your thinking. If the other rental owners aren’t paying attention, all the better for you.  You will get the edge that could mean that your properties make a profit every year, your bank account bulges, and you will be able to retire in comfort.  It begins with marketing.

Marketing is everywhere and we can learn things that work for our rental properties by watching not just how the pros do it but also what other techniques can be even more effective.  Everyone buys (or rents) for his or her own reasons, not ours.  So in order to be effective, we need to appeal to as many of those reasons as we can to hit the bull’s-eye of why a particular person buys. We need to use as many marketing techniques as we can to attract the attention of those excellent prospective tenants who are looking for a new home.  We don’t know which avenue will attract which prospect, so the more we use, the more likely it will be that we reach them.

Whatever factor prompted you to buy something, we will discuss it in this book. It has to do with marketing.  And it’s more than just the advertising, believe me.  Many people believe that marketing and advertising are the same thing, but advertising is just one piece of the marketing picture. In fact, advertising may have had nothing whatsoever to do with why someone ends up buying.  We will look at how each factor affects getting a unit rented.

Do all these work every time?  Of course not, nothing works every time.  Will you need to use every one of these techniques to generate the kind of traffic that you deserve as result of your expertise and experience in rental property management?  Of course not, you pick the techniques you are most comfortable with and use them.  Some techniques work better in conjunction with others, but you’ll be able to figure that out easily.  Try the things that work for you and see what kind of results you get.  Few of them cost much money and some none at all, so you have no risk.

Enjoy this book and “Get It Rented”!

This book is scheduled for release Jan. 31, 2017 both as an ebook and a hard copy. To reserve your own copy, email me.

Copyright 2016, Cain Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.  For more information, address Property News Service, PO Box 68761, Oro Valley, Arizona 85737.