Teach AI to Write Your Next Listing (and Other Tactics Landlords Need)

Thank you, Jeffrey. My name is Seamus Nally. I’m the CEO at TurboTenant. Today, we are going to try to provide some very actionable tips, some of which relate to the software that we create, some of which don’t, and are hopefully just things that you can start utilizing to scale the business. So I’m joined by this lovely individual, Krista. She runs a lot of our educational webinars and courses, and so because she’s much better at staying on track and on time than I am, she’s going to start walking us through this presentation, and we’re going to have a little bit of audience participation as well. So Krista, take it away.

Well, thank you for that introduction, Seamus. Really happy to be here with you guys today. We’re going to start out with some of that interactivity that Seamus was mentioning. So tell us, how many years of property management experience do you have? A lot of you are in different spots of your landlording journey, but we have tools and tricks to help all of you. So whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in the game for a while, we are hoping to teach you something new today. So three key takeaways: we are going to help you improve your property listings to get better quality leads, scale your business with easy-to-use technology, and scale yourself through education. And you might be looking at me and saying, “Krista, I don’t need your help in scaling my business. I have 101 doors. I don’t want to hear you talk.” In which case, a little bit rude, a little bit aggressive, but I won’t take it personally. Instead, what I’m going to tell you is that I bet I have a tool in here that you’re not using that could improve your process. So stick around. We’re going to start off with digital marketing, and before we dive in, Seamus, you added this note about high-quality listings. Tell me how the quality of the listing translates to the quality of the tenant that you see?

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things our platform does is facilitate the marketing process for a lot of landlords. And when I say a lot, we’ve had over 500,000 landlords utilizing our platform. And so we get to see a lot of listings, and there’s one thing that is true across the board: a high-quality listing gets you high-quality renters. And it just makes sense, right? Is anyone in here going to apply to live at a property that looks terrible or has sparse information? The answer is no. Now, the only people that do apply for those listings are people that are desperate, right? They’re not your highest quality tenants. And so the one thing that we really encourage our landlords to do is make every effort possible to create a really high-quality listing, and we’ve got some tips that Krista is going to walk us through so that they get the cream of the crop tenants for wherever that’s located. And that doesn’t matter if you’re in class A or class D. You still want to attract the best possible tenants for the location of your rentals.

Absolutely. So let’s jump in. We are at least, right? So we are in the…hopefully, you are too. If you’re not, don’t worry. I’m going to make it easy for you. Unfortunately, in this digital ecosphere, there is a lot of competition, and people’s attention spans are shrinking by the day. So right now, the average attention span is about eight seconds, which means you really need to make a good first impression in order to get quality tenants. Fellow landlords in this room, but also with big companies like BlackRock. If you’re unfamiliar with BlackRock, congratulations. I don’t know how you avoided that piece of information. I’m jealous. But they are the world’s largest investment manager. In 2021 alone, they managed 10 trillion, that’s with a “t”, trillion dollars. So it makes sense that they have just under 100 million dollars to spend on marketing. Please stand up if you have just under 100 million dollars to spend on your marketing for rentals. No? Okay, me neither. That’s why I work here.

So with that in mind, you really ask yourself, are you making the most of your marketing for vacancies? Are you leveraging the tools available to play against these big players without getting swept under the tide? We’re gonna go through a little game here. We have two listings to show you. We’re gonna go step by step and compare and contrast. I want to know what each one’s doing well and what they can improve. And don’t worry if you’re not sure. I have quite a few thoughts on it.

Alright. Two listing descriptions. Listing A is pretty brief, to the point. Listing B has a lot more detail. So from a show of hands, who thinks that listing A’s description is better? Good point. Alright. So I’m going to assume here, who thinks listing B is better? Show of hands. Yep, we’ve got some hands. Some people are like, “I don’t know, Krista. I’m not sure if I can read that far.” That’s A-Okay. Let me tell you. Listing B has a lot more detail. It has things like the availability date, what kind of space they’re getting, the bed and bath count, amenities, next steps. These are all pieces of crucial information that you need to make sure is in every single listing.

Okay. There are also a couple of issues with the actual verbiage of listing A. For example, you absolutely cannot say “no smokers” or “no kids.” You cannot do that. You’d be in violation of the Fair Housing Act. So we’ve seen the language. We know that listing B is better, but let’s take a look at the pictures. Same room, two angles. Listing A’s picture isn’t terrible. It’s not the worst one I’ve seen. However, yeah, someone said it. It’s too close. It doesn’t show you the full space, and it’s also a little dim for my liking. Versus listing B, it’s very open. You can see the entire room and understand better the little alcove thing that we have going on here, a nice unique feature, and it gives a clear picture of what the tenant could expect if they lived there.

Yeah. And your listing may only be 600 square feet, but get credit for every single one of those square feet when you’re taking your photos. And that’s really what this shows.

Absolutely. So similarly here, let’s take a look at the kitchen. One of these is great. It’s not listing A. Listing A is too zoomed in. It’s not well-lit. It’s also not well-aligned. So you’ll…we’ll talk about this shortly, but the vertical lines here are a little bit skewed and the horizontal lines aren’t looking that great either. It just doesn’t really work. While there are tools that you can use to try and fix a photo like this, it’s better to just redo it. Take a step back, get the full scope of the space, and make it look nice like it does in listing B.

One last picture here for you. Of course, we have an amenity, a pool. Who wouldn’t like a pool? It’s been very hot here. With that in mind, I would way rather go swimming in listing B’s pool. It looks bright and inviting versus listing A, where you can see a nice trash can. That’s awesome. I don’t want beer bottles in my pool, but do I need to see it in a listing photo? Probably not. Any thoughts, Seamus, before I scoot on?

No. I agree. And it’s worth the investment. We’re going to talk about how exactly to get some of these better photos as well. Yes, and tools that you can use.

Okay. Let’s dive into those tools that we mentioned. First off, we have listing descriptions.

Right. So one really simple application that we wanted to show off is just around that listing description. As we showed in listing A, very sparse, even had some illegal or fair housing violation aspects of it, and B was a lot more detailed. And so what I have a video of here is using Bard, which is Google’s product. It’s free for everyone to use. You don’t need to sign up. You don’t need to do anything. And what I did is I added a prompt. So I added a prompt for listing A, 140 North Bryan, and I just took and copied and pasted the “two bedrooms, one bath, furnished,” and I said, “Create a listing description along with local amenities.” And so you can see some of the details that it pulls out. It pulls out transportation amenities. Now, you have to double-check these, right? Make sure that you read these. But then the next piece of what I did is I actually asked them to rewrite it and make sure it complied with fair housing laws. And so as you see there, it actually wrote it. And then at the very bottom of this, it tells me what it removed. So it removed the “no kids,” and it actually removed the “no smokers,” and it tells me why. So this is a really good way for you to create kind of that first listing description if you’re not feeling overly creative.

The other thing that’s awesome is some listing sites have a character limit. A character limit of, excuse me, 10,000 characters is very common across listing sites. So you can actually put in the prompt limit to 10,000 characters, and it will…

A very easy way for you to do it. For those of you with many listings, it’s a quick way to create a whole bunch of these. I will say, though, you still got to read through it, make sure that you re-read through it, make sure that it’s all true and that it makes sense.

Absolutely. So always good to leverage the technology available to you. But as Seamus mentioned, we still want some human eyes on the actual words. That said, there are other tools that you can use to further increase the likelihood that a tenant is going to read your description and fall in love with your property. I’ve listed them here. I won’t go through each one individually, but I will say Grammarly is a huge free tool. One, it’s one that I use every day as a professional writer and researcher. So that’s a pretty good endorsement. But the reason I use it is because it keeps my grammar looking good and making sense. So even if I miss a comma, they won’t. And that means that I look better to my bosses. Can’t argue with that. And you, in turn, will look better to prospective tenants because they are looking for something that they can understand, right?

We’ve also listed out some services here that you can use, whether it’s an AI-based service that writes your listing for you with a couple of revisions available or you can hire a professional who can spin up a listing description based on your photos. So different price points because, like I said, I know everybody’s in a different space of their landlord journey, and it’s important to cater to you all.

And I think this is the first impression, right? Just like when you’re marketing your business, when you’re marketing a listing, that first impression really matters. If you have grammatical spelling errors, if it’s in all caps, which used to be really, really popular on Craigslist, right? That sends a certain vibe. It says, “It sends as a landlord, you don’t have high attention to detail.” And the renter is going to draw conclusions from that. Now, will that scare off desperate renters? No. Will it maybe make really high-quality renters think about whether or not they want to apply or see your place? Yes. And I think we’re all in the business of getting the highest quality renter possible based on the location and the market our property is in. And so that’s why we constantly tell our landlords when we get an opportunity to talk to them about their listing, read this description, look at these photos. Would you want to live there based on what it’s saying, right? Would you apply to this place? And these tools help a lot to make sure that you’re not making simple mistakes.

Beautiful. Like we said, you’re still going to want to make sure that you review everything before you put it up because let’s face it, at the end of the day, if your listing violates fair housing laws, the tenant is not going to come after Grammarly, they’re not going to go after Listing AI. They’re going to go after you. And if you were unaware, you can actually be charged up to $16,000 for your first fair housing violation, regardless if it was intentional or not. And in fact, it usually isn’t. Most people aren’t out there to purposely harm folks by being discriminatory. But it’s really easy to do accidentally. So with that in mind, you’re going to want to make sure that your final listing does not reference any of the seven protected classes in a way that would be discriminatory.

Let’s circle back to the smokers thing. Most people do not allow smoking in their properties. Show of hands if you allow smoking in any of your properties. Okay, we got one, two, three people. All right. So it is okay to ban smoking. You may not ban smokers. So it’s that little tiny tweak of your language to make sure that you are compliant. Now, why is that? Because smoking is seen as an addiction through the eyes of HUD. You absolutely cannot discriminate based on that. So it’s easy enough to do, but you have to be mindful. If you need some help being mindful, we have a course that we created specifically for this purpose. Our fair housing course for landlords goes through some commonly missed things that could get you in huge trouble. If you are starting out with this technology thing, you’ve just gotten your Listing AI reading, and you’re like, “Okay, this seems good. But am I compliant? Is this going to get me in trouble? Am I going to have to pay $16,000 to Uncle Sam because I said smokers instead of smoking?” I will say too around fair housing, it’s just a topic. And this is the reason that we did create a course. It’s two hours of content on…and it’s worth the refresher. And if you have new team members that are helping you out, it’s worth them going through that and learning it. Right? Because anyone can make that mistake. You can be an absolute expert on it, and if someone on your team makes that mistake, right, it’s putting you at risk. I find this is also especially important from the standpoint of listings because the purpose of any listing that you are putting out, right, your goal is to get as many people to see it as possible, right? And so that just opens up the pool of individuals that can look at it, identify that there’s an issue with it, and actually come after you. And from time to time, we get actually attorneys sending us letters about landlords’ listings, thinking that we create them ourselves. We do not. The landlord wrote them, right? But they’re trying to actually go after landlords that are doing fair housing violations, even ones that are very small, like saying “no smokers” as opposed to “no smoking.” Like, that actually happens. Right now, and I’m sure many of you can agree with me, that it sucks and it’s brutal and it’s certainly not looking at the best intention of the individuals, but it’s just not worth it.

With that in mind, one last thing about fair housing, did you know you cannot say a property is family-friendly? That’s one that usually shocks people. Don’t do that. That is discriminating based on familial status, and you absolutely can’t. So, lots of things to learn, check us out for that; otherwise, we’ll keep scooting along. We’ve talked to you about your listing, the description part. The other core component of your listing is, of course, the photography, right? So we’re going to go through some basics here, just to make sure that, you know, we’ve mentioned that you should make sure that your lines are lining up properly, so horizontal and vertical, that way your pictures look professional. The more professional your pictures look, the better quality tenants that you’re going to be able to net, because they are looking at that and judging you as a landlord and your capability to take care of their needs. You’re also going to want to make sure that your spaces are well-lit when you’re taking pictures and tidy. Additionally, don’t be in the pictures, watch your reflection. You’re not going to get uploaded to a listing site if you are in the pictures; in fact, at TurboTenant, we will ask that because it just, it is not good form. Additionally, turn off your ceiling fans. It looks like a scary blur; people don’t want to be scared in your rental, so turn that off. Make sure that you show off the amenities and, of course, if you’re taking pictures outside, don’t do it at high noon. Shadows are nobody’s friends. Anything to add?

I just think it’s a really important point that you bring up in terms of being in the images. There are certain things that you if you put them in your listing, they’re not going to get posted on the most popular listing sites, right? So whether it’s apartments.com or realtor.com or Redfin or Zillow, they’re not going to post a picture with a person in it. It gets flagged as fraudulent, so they take it down right away. They also are not going to post any photos that have text over them, okay? So from time to time, we have landlords that are saying, you know, “Discount 10% right,” or “No security deposit down,” or putting other things that resemble deals on top of their photos. Those will get flagged as fraudulent in a lot of cases and taken down, so save that for the description; don’t add it to the photos. It’s going to slow your turnaround, and the way a lot of these sites actually work is they won’t even tell you why they take it down; it just will never go up, right? So save yourself the headache.

Absolutely. So you’ve gotten your pictures, but what if you want to go that extra step? Let’s say you have a luxury rental somewhere nestled in the mountains of Aspen, and you really want to show it off. Drone photography is a great way to do it, so that is going to give you a bird’s eye view of the property and the grounds. Of course, it’s not perfect for every property; if you have a multi-family unit in the heart of downtown Denver, just surrounded by other buildings, probably don’t need a bird’s eye view of that. So use it sparingly, but where it makes sense, it has a great payoff. It looks professional, it looks incredible, and it gives people a sense of everything that you have to offer in one fell swoop.

Similarly, if you are really excited about taking pictures, I’m going to recommend that you aim to do it at twilight. However, it is tricky because that is a hard time for lighting. When it works, though, it’s gorgeous; you get pictures like this, which are dreamy. It’s kind of a romantic vibe, and so this is another one for high-end properties, if you have them out there. There are tools to help you mimic this kind of lighting; Canva is a really good one if you need to quickly edit or make changes to a picture, as is PicMonkey. Those are two great free services, but make sure that you give them a good base to work on; have a good picture to meet the foundation that you need to have that solid image that people can use to picture themselves in your rental. Also, aim to have at least 10 pictures and you’re going to want to have them in the order that the person would encounter the spaces in your home. Really be mindful as you’re building that listing of the order of your photographs. You don’t want to go from the bedroom to the backyard to the bathroom to the front door. That’s just a very confusing experience. You’re looking to make it smooth for your prospective tenants. And if you’re listing an amenity in the description, grab a photo of it, right? You want those things to line up one to one, once again, so the individual has a really good idea as to what your listing looks like.

Alright, enough of me talking for a hot minute, except I’m going to read this question: “Have you created a virtual tour for a listing before?” There is no shame, no one can see that you haven’t done it, so be honest. Looks like the majority–I know so far, it’s now–Seamus, have you gotten around to making a virtual tour?

I have not actually done a virtual tour. So good news, I have some technology that can help you. A few… So virtual tours, if you are uninitiated, it is basically a walkthrough of your property available online, which means that people out of state can see your property and imagine themselves there just as easily as someone who knocks on the door. When you use a virtual tour, not only can you get more people to actually put eyes on your property, but that actually translates into increased application conversion, it shortens your vacancy cycle which saves you money, and gets you someone who you want in your property for as long as possible. Sounds like a win-win to me.

If you haven’t used a virtual tour before, you might be like, “Okay, Krista, great, I have a video of my property. What the heck do I do with it?” Well, first of all, when you make that video, make sure that you’re including information and footage about the communal spaces as well as any outdoor areas. Your goal is to give them a complete picture of your property. Think of it as a little filmmaking journey, right? Put on your director hat and take a walk, starting at the beginning of your property, go all the way through as you would with any other tour, wrap around to the backyard, outdoor areas, whatever you can. Then take that video, put it in your listing, put it on your website, put it on your social media, put it everywhere because that is the kind of thing that really pays off. And if you don’t have a website or social media, I’ve also found it really helpful as just something to respond to interested leads with. We’ve… we’re going to talk here about a pre-screener and the value of that, but it’s also nice, you know, if you are going to do a showing or someone is asking you questions, for you to be able to include that tidbit of information back to them even with an automatic reply.

Absolutely. So there are quite a few tools that you can choose to make your own virtual tour. We’ve got everything from a smartphone and a gimbal, which is essentially a stabilizing tool, to Matterport. Now, Matterport’s a big name in the game, so if you’ve heard of them, raise your hand. Got some hands, got some hands, yeah, okay, people know Matterport. Why? Because they are fantastic at what they do. You might be looking at that price tag and wondering, well, is it really worth it? I would argue yes, and they don’t even pay me to say that. But the reason that I think it’s worth it is because you can actually reuse this virtual tour as often as you need to, as long as your property doesn’t change majorly, right?

So let’s take a look at a Matterport tour. We are going to jump into it here. So this is a Matterport tour. Essentially, you can hop into the property and use your mouse or your finger to move around the property as though you are actually walking through it. You can use your keyboard; you can use the mouse. As you move around, you can go to different areas of the property. So you can see here, this is a big kind of communal living space that’s right when you walk in the door, so you can go through the front door and walk right into that living room area, or if you want to go right into the kitchen, you have the ability to skip around or focus in on the areas that you want to use. There’s also kind of a dollhouse view, which is kind of fun too because then you get to see where all the other spaces are in relation to each other. So you have a really good sense of what’s going on, and it also just gives you that feel for what’s happening, and you don’t even need to go to the property to get a sense of the layout of the rooms and the flow of the property, which I think is fantastic. And all of this is embedded right into the listing, so if you’ve seen it on Zillow or if you’ve seen it on Redfin, wherever else, this is available on those platforms. It’s also available if you put the video on YouTube, and I’ve seen people get pretty creative and post it in the listing as well.

So now that we’ve talked about getting people to the property, and we’ve got a great idea on how to do that with the photography, let’s go ahead and chat about how to streamline those leads and keep yourself from going crazy in the process. I do think… I will add with this virtual tour, just from experience, that people will contact you, and they will feel like they know your property already. So instead of just saying, “Hey, can I schedule a showing,” they might say, “Hey, I want to take a look at your property. I’m available on Monday at 3 p.m.,” which is fantastic because you can say, “Great, I can meet you there and do the tour personally if they’re asking you for that.” But if they’re not looking for that, you can also direct them back to your site to take a look at the virtual tour again.

Absolutely. And it also just helps you filter out those people who are not actually interested in the property. If they’ve gone through the virtual tour and they’re like, “Hey, this isn’t what I’m looking for,” then you know not to spend your time on them, and you can focus on the people who are actually interested in that property.

Exactly. So to streamline leads, here’s a few things that we’re going to talk about that we mentioned earlier. We’ve got syndication, then we’ve got using software to manage your leads, and then finally, we’ve got some social media marketing pieces.

So one of the first things that you can do to streamline your leads is to utilize a syndication network. And I can tell you, from personal experience, there are so many sites out there where you can post your property and spend so much time doing it, right? So there’s a lot of places you could post your property, in addition to your own website, right? We’re talking Zillow, realtor.com, Redfin, apartments.com, there’s just so many out there, that it takes time to post it, but then it also takes time to go and update the listings later, right? And how do you update your listing later? Well, if you have five or ten listings out there, maybe it’s manageable, but if you have 20 or 30 listings out there, suddenly you are spending half of your time updating listings as opposed to managing your rental property. So there are services out there, like TurboTenant, which I’m going to show you here, that allow you to post to one platform, and then that platform will distribute your listing to the other platforms out there. So you’re not posting your property a million times, and you’re also not updating your property a million times, which is kind of nice. The other part of this that I really like is that they have relationships with the platforms that they’re distributing to. So they’re more likely to have a direct line to somebody there if something goes haywire with your listing, as opposed to me trying to call Zillow and navigate through their automated system to talk to a human being, which I can tell you is time-consuming and frustrating. So if you can just delegate that, I think it’s a huge value and not a ton of money.

Now, I also do think I want to add here that when you’re choosing a syndication network, it’s important to choose one that is kind of no additional fee to post. So that would be like Zillow and HotPads, right? Those are free ones. Or, if you’re choosing one that has a really good relationship with a specific platform that you want to post to. So if you’re looking at apartments.com, for example, which tends to bring in really good leads, that is one that we always recommend landlords put their property on as well, if they’re going to post it anywhere. So pick the one that has a relationship with your most ideal platform, or go for a free one.

I completely agree. I think that’s a great point. So it’s not just about getting your listing out there; it’s about getting it out there in a way that’s going to get you the most bang for your buck, for sure. And like she said, Zillow is a big name, it’s free, it’s easy, and it gets a lot of traffic. So if you’re going to choose one to start with, that’s a great one.

Absolutely. Next, you’re going to want to look at how you’re going to manage those leads, right? You want to make sure that you’re responding to people quickly, and if you’ve been a landlord, you know that people usually contact you at the most inconvenient times, right? So it’s going to be midnight on a Friday, and you’re going to get a text that says, “Hey, I want to see your property tomorrow,” and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I was about to go to sleep!” But you know you want to respond quickly because you want to make sure that you’re giving those prospective tenants a good experience because if you don’t, someone else is going to, and they’re going to go with that someone else.

Exactly. So if you’re sleeping and the text comes in, what are you going to do? You have a couple of options: you could jump up and run to the phone, which is my natural tendency because I’m terrified I’m going to miss out, or you could set up an automatic reply. Now, if you want to set up an automatic reply and you’re going to do that for the entire time that your listing is up, I recommend something like the template that we have here. You can adjust this as necessary: “Hey, I’m so excited that you’re interested in my property. Thanks for your inquiry. You’re definitely in the running. I do showings between these hours.” This is important to put on because you don’t want to be responding at midnight, right? And make sure that you’re letting them know that that is the only time that you’re doing showings, but you also want to create a sense of urgency. So if you’re saying, “I’m only showing between 10 and 2, and I’ve got four other people coming in,” you might want to move quick if this is the place that you want to live.

Exactly. That helps create a little bit of competition, which is always good for you as the landlord. Now, this could be done if you are available and you just want to give it a little bit of time because you don’t want to seem like you’re too eager to rent the property, which by the way, is another thing that a lot of people tell us about responding too quickly, right? If you respond within like five minutes, they think there’s something wrong with the property or that it’s been listed for too long, and that’s why you’re so eager to get somebody in there. But then there’s the other side, where if you don’t respond at all, they’re like, “Well, is this still available? Is it not available? What’s going on?” So you definitely want to respond within a good time frame. So if you’re going to bed at midnight, you don’t want to respond then, but you can set up an automatic reply that says something along the lines of, “Hey, I’m so glad that you’re interested. I’m going to be available to show the property tomorrow between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., and I’ll make sure that I give you a call then.” That gives you the ability to get up the next morning at a reasonable time, give them a call, and set up the showing. So that way you’re not responding at midnight, but you’re also not leaving them hanging, and you’re also not giving the appearance that you are just waiting for their email to come in, and you’re going to jump up and respond right away because you’re available.

Exactly. Now, the other option is if you’re sleeping or you’re not available to respond, you can set up an automatic text message that goes out. It says, “Hey, I’m so glad you’re interested. I’m currently unavailable to respond, but I will get back to you tomorrow between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.” That way, they know you got their text message, and you’re going to get back to them; you’re just not going to get back to them right away, and that gives you that time to get back to them within a reasonable time frame without giving the impression that you’re too eager to get them in the property or that you’re not interested in responding at all.

Now, on that note, when you do respond, you want to make sure that you’re asking a few key questions. One of the first questions that you want to ask is, “Hey, tell me a little bit about yourself.” You want to know what their situation is, why they’re looking to move, why they’re interested in your property, and also how many people are going to be living there because that’s going to help you make sure that you’re bringing in the right people, right? You don’t want to have a single person living in a four-bedroom property with four bathrooms because you know that’s not a good fit and it’s not going to be a good long-term tenant. So you want to make sure that you’re getting those details and you’re making sure that they are a good fit for your property.

Absolutely. Then, you also want to be able to send them a link to a pre-screener. So once you know that they’re a good fit for your property, you can go ahead and send them a link to the pre-screener, so that way they can start that process. It’s quick; it’s easy, and it’s going to help you out on your side as well because it’s going to give you a better idea of who you’re working with.

Exactly. Now we have a pre-screener that we offer to all of our landlords on our free plan. And you can check it out and see what it looks like here. This is a pre-screener that you can customize to your needs, and it’s going to ask them a few key questions. So you can see here it’s asking them their name, their email, their phone number, how long they’re looking to stay, their rental history, their employment history, and then it’s going to ask them for any additional information that you want to know. Now, the great thing about this is, it’s going to give you a good sense of who they are, but it’s also going to give you a chance to filter out those people who are not a good fit for your property. So if they’re not willing to fill out the pre-screener, you know that they’re not serious about renting the property, and you don’t need to waste your time with them.

Exactly. Now another thing that’s really great is, it’s going to give you a sense of what kind of tenant they are. So if they’ve been evicted in the past, if they’ve got a criminal history, it’s going to give you a sense of that, and you can decide whether or not that’s a good fit for your property and your other tenants.

Exactly. And that’s important because you want to make sure that you’re keeping a safe environment for your other tenants. And if you’re bringing somebody in who has a history of criminal activity, or they’ve been evicted multiple times, you’re probably not going to want them in your property because it’s going to increase the risk for the other tenants, and you’re going to have a whole slew of other problems to deal with down the road.

For sure. So you want to make sure that you’re screening them upfront and that you’re not just accepting anyone who’s interested in your property.

Exactly. So if you’re not using a service like TurboTenant to do that pre-screener for you, what are the questions that you might want to ask? I would say the questions that are asked on a pre-screener are probably the most important, and these are the ones that you want to make sure that you’re asking upfront, and then you can ask any other questions that you want to ask after that. And I would also say, I would stick to these questions and not really venture outside of them. So if they’re giving you a sob story about why their credit is terrible or why their landlord from two years ago gave them a bad reference, I would be cautious of those answers and maybe not as inclined to rent to them because they’re already kind of giving you a warning signal that they might not be the best tenant for your property.

Right, exactly. So you want to make sure that you’re paying attention to those warning signals and that you’re not just accepting anyone who comes in and is interested in the property.

Exactly. Now another piece that I want to talk about is managing leads with software. And I can tell you, I am a big fan of using software to manage leads because it saves so much time and it also makes you look professional, right? Because if you’re trying to manage everything in your email, it’s really easy for things to fall through the cracks and for you to forget to follow up with someone. But if you’re using software to manage those leads, it’s going to remind you, and it’s going to keep

you organized so you’re not dropping the ball.

Exactly. So one of the things that I think is the most important with these softwares is making sure that you can manage all of your leads in one place. You’re not having to go through 10 different inboxes to respond to people, and you’re not having to remember, “Oh, I’ve got to go check my voicemail and respond to that person separately,” or, “I have to go check my emails and respond to those people separately.” It’s all in one place for you to respond to, it’s also all in one place for you to document. So you can document all the calls you’re making, all the showings that you’re doing, and you can keep track of everything in one place. So if there’s ever a question, you’re not having to look through 10 different emails to find out what happened on a certain date; it’s all in one place.

Exactly. And that’s important because if you’re dealing with a fair housing complaint and somebody says, “Hey, you treated me unfairly, and you didn’t respond to my request for a showing,” or, “You didn’t respond to my request to rent your property,” it’s really easy for you to say, “I did respond to them. Here’s the response that I sent. Here’s the time that I sent it. Here’s what I said in my response.” And you’re able to easily defend yourself against that claim.

Exactly. Now, another great thing about using software to manage your leads is that it’s going to automate a lot of those follow-ups for you. Because like we said earlier, you want to make sure that you’re responding quickly, but you also want to make sure that you’re following up with people because not everyone is going to respond to your initial message or your initial email right away, and you don’t want to let those people fall through the cracks. So you can set up automated follow-ups that say, “Hey, just wanted to check in and see if you’re still interested in the property,” or, “Hey, just wanted to see if you have any questions about the property,” and that’s going to remind them that they were interested, and it’s going to keep you top of mind.

Exactly. And it’s also going to keep you from falling through the cracks and forgetting about those people. Because if you have 10 or 20 leads coming in, it’s really easy for a few of them to fall through the cracks, and for you to lose out on those potential renters. And you’re also going to want to make sure that you’re not just following up but you’re also documenting those follow-ups, and you’re keeping track of them in your software. So that way, if there’s ever a question, you can say, “Hey, I followed up with them on this date, and here’s the response that I got from them,” or, “Hey, I followed up with them on this date and I didn’t get a response,” so that way you’re able to show that you’re making those efforts and that you’re trying to get back to people, but they’re not responding.

Exactly. Now, another piece that’s really important with managing leads is making sure that you’re not just responding to people, but you’re also asking them questions, so you can get a better sense of what they’re looking for. Because if they’re not a good fit for your property, you don’t want to waste your time showing it to them, and you also don’t want to waste their time showing it to them if it’s not what they’re looking for.

Exactly. So you want to make sure that you’re asking them questions about what they’re looking for, and you’re also giving them the information that they need to make an informed decision. So if you’re not able to show the property for a few days, you want to let them know that because you don’t want to get them excited and then tell them, “Oh, I can’t show it to you for a week,” and then they’re going to move on to the next property, and they’re not going to be interested anymore.

Exactly. And you also want to make sure that you’re giving them a sense of urgency. So you don’t want to just say, “Hey, I’m available to show the property whenever you’re available,” because then they’re going to take their time, and they’re not going to be in a hurry to see it. So you want to say, “Hey, I’m available to show the property tomorrow between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Do any of those times work for you?” And that’s going to give them a sense of urgency, and it’s going to make them feel like, “Oh, I need to jump on this opportunity and see the property because it’s not going to be available for long.”

Exactly. Now, another piece that I want to talk about is using social media to market your property. And I can tell you, social media is a fantastic tool for marketing your property because it gets a lot of attention, and it’s also really easy to share with other people. So if you have a property that you want to market, you can post it on your social media, and then your friends can share it with their friends, and it’s going to get a lot more attention than it would if you were just posting it on a listing site.

Exactly. And a lot of people think that social media is only for the younger generation, but I can tell you, as somebody who’s a little bit older, I still use social media to find things, and I know a lot of other people in my generation do too. So don’t discount that older generation, because they are still using social media to find things.

Exactly. Now, a few of the things that you can do with social media to market your property are: you can post pictures of the property, you can post videos of the property, you can post a link to the listing, you can post a link to the virtual tour, and that’s going to give people a better sense of what the property looks like, and it’s going to make them more interested in checking it out.

Exactly. And I think it’s also important to add that you should make sure that your posts are public. So if you’re going to post on Facebook, or Instagram, or any other social media platform, that you’re making those posts public, so that anyone can see them, and you’re not just limiting it to your friends and family. Because you want as many eyes on your property as possible.

Exactly. Now another great thing about using social media to market your property is that it’s really easy to share it with other people. So if you post it on your social media, your friends can share it with their friends, and then their friends can share it with their friends, and it’s going to get a lot more attention than if you were just posting it on a listing site.

Exactly. Now a few other pieces that I want to talk about before we wrap things up is making sure that you’re setting up a Google Voice number, or some other way to manage those phone calls. Because like we said earlier, people are going to call you at the most inconvenient times, and you don’t want to be giving out your personal phone number to every single person who’s interested in your property. So you want to set up a Google Voice number, or some other way to manage those phone calls, and make sure that you’re responding quickly. Because like we said earlier, the person who responds the fastest is usually the one who gets the deal.

Exactly. Now another piece that’s really important with managing leads is making sure that you’re not just responding to people, but you’re also following up with them, and you’re keeping track of all of those interactions. Because if there’s ever a question, you want to be able to go back and say, “Hey, I responded to them on this date, and here’s what I said.” And you also want to make sure that you’re keeping track of those interactions so you can follow up with people and make sure that you’re not dropping the ball.

Exactly. And you want to make sure that you’re documenting all of those follow-ups, and you’re making sure that you’re documenting the calls that you’re making and the showings that you’re doing. So that way, if there’s ever a question, you’re not having to search through all of your emails to find out what happened on a certain date.

Exactly. Now, another piece that’s really important with managing your leads is making sure that you’re not just responding to people, but you’re also setting expectations for them. Because if they’re expecting a showing tomorrow and you’re not available to show it tomorrow, they’re going to be disappointed, and they’re not going to be as interested in your property. So you want to make sure that you’re setting those expectations, and you’re letting them know what the process is going to look like and how you’re going to move forward.

Exactly. And that’s also going to give them a sense of urgency to see the property. Because if they know that they’re only available to see it on a certain day, they’re going to make sure that they’re available to see it on that day, and they’re not going to want to miss out on the opportunity to see the property

Now, I also want to talk about setting up a Google Voice number, or some other way to manage those phone calls because, like we said earlier, people are going to call you at the most inconvenient times, and you don’t want to be giving out your personal phone number to every single person who’s interested in your property. So you want to set up a Google Voice number, or some other way to manage those phone calls, and make sure that you’re responding quickly. Because like we said earlier, the person who responds the fastest is usually the one who gets the deal.

Exactly. Now, another piece that’s really important with managing leads is making sure that you’re not just responding to people, but you’re also following up with them, and you’re keeping track of all of those interactions. Because if there’s ever a question, you want to be able to go back and say, “Hey, I responded to them on this date, and here’s what I said.” And you also want to make sure that you’re keeping track of those interactions, so you can follow up with people and make sure that you’re not dropping the ball.

Exactly. And you want to make sure that you’re documenting all of those follow-ups, and you’re making sure that you’re documenting the calls that you’re making and the showings that you’re doing. So that way, if there’s ever a question, you’re not having to search through all of your emails to find out what happened on a certain date.

Exactly. And you also want to make sure that you’re setting expectations for them, and you’re letting them know what the process is going to look like, and how you’re going to move forward because if they’re expecting a showing tomorrow and you’re not available to show it tomorrow, they’re going to be disappointed, and they’re not going to be as interested in your property. So you want to make sure that you’re setting those expectations and you’re letting them know what the process is going to look like, and how you’re going to move forward.

Exactly. Now, one last thing that I want to talk about is making sure that you’re not just responding to people, but you’re also following up with them, and you’re setting those expectations for them, and you’re also asking them questions, and you’re getting more information about them. Because if they’re not a good fit for your property, you don’t want to waste your time showing it to them, and you also don’t want to waste their time showing it to them if it’s not what they’re looking for.

Exactly. And you want to make sure that you’re asking the right questions and you’re getting enough information about them to make an informed decision about whether or not they’re a good fit for your property, and also whether or not your property is a good fit for them.

Exactly. And one last piece that I want to leave you with before we wrap things up is just to remember to be professional and to treat everyone with respect. Because even if you don’t choose to rent to them, they might know someone who’s interested in your property. And if you treat them with respect and you’re professional, they’re more likely to refer someone to you, and that’s going to help you find a tenant even faster.

Exactly. So make sure that you’re treating people with respect, and you’re being professional in all of your interactions, and that’s going to help you find a tenant even faster. And that’s it for this week’s episode of the Rent Prepper podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Alright, and that is the end of the episode. I hope you found that helpful, and if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else that we can help you with, please feel free to reach out and let us know. We’re here to help, and we’re always happy to answer your questions and provide you with any information that you need to be successful in managing your rental property.

Exactly. And I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, please give us a thumbs up, and if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else that we can help you with, please feel free to reach out and let us know. We’re always here to help, and we’re always happy to answer your questions and provide you with any information that you need to be successful in managing your rental property.

Exactly. And that’s it for this week’s episode of the Rent Prepper podcast. We’ll see you next time.

Alright, and that is the end of the episode. I hope you found that helpful, and if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else that we can help you with, please feel free to reach out and let us know. We’re always happy to help and provide you with any information that you need to be successful in managing your rental property.

Exactly. And if you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving us a review. We really appreciate it, and it helps us reach more landlords and property managers who can benefit from this information. So, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

Alright, and that is the end of the episode. I hope you found that helpful, and if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else that we can help you with, please feel free to reach out and let us know. We’re always happy to help and provide you with any information that you need to be successful in managing your rental property.

Exactly, and if you found this episode helpful, please consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving us a review. We really appreciate it, and it helps us reach more landlords and property managers who can benefit from this information. So, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.