6 Tips On Advertising And Maintaining Tenancies Throughout The Year

By Paul Birkeland

1     Newspapers charge different rates for daily and/or Sunday editions.  Make sure you understand their pricing policies, and choose advertising which best meets your needs.

2    Many landlords find that Sunday editions are a 'best buy' which prospective tenants carry around for many days thereafter.

3    Open houses on Sunday afternoons work very well, except in the summer when weekend days can be very slow.  Monday and Tuesday evenings during the summer are much busier.  Also, holiday weekends are almost worthless in terms of advertising.

4    Do have plenty of applications, but be careful to take funds from one person at a time, or have a refund policy.  I feel screening multiple applicants, simultaneously, for the same rental unit creates an ethical problem which I don't like.

5     Month-to-month rental agreements in Seattle create very onerous eviction rules for the landlord.  Learn your market, in advance of setting the rent, and there is no need to change rental rates more often than yearly.

6    It is difficult to find residents in November and December.  Our buildings offer no leases which end in these months.  These are times we like our business to quiet down, and these are the times we like to enjoy the holidays.  Our employees especially appreciate this policy.  A month-to-month tenancy basically sets up control in the hands of the tenant, who can leave anytime by giving a mere 20 days notice (in Seattle, not L. A.).

To cite an upcoming and very difficult example, a tenant on a month-to-month tenancy could give notice at the end of the day November 10, 2000, and end tenancy November 30, 2000.  The landlord could not get an ad in the Sunday November 12 paper at that late date, and except for the usually slow Thanksgiving weekend, would only have the November 21 Sunday paper to advertise in a Sunday newspaper the entire month of November.  See the problem here with a month-to-month tenancy?

In our early days in this business we had rentals sit vacant all of November and December before we adopted term leases, which do not have November or December end dates.

These suggestions are based on 28 years in the business.  Try them.

Reprinted courtesy of The AASK Update-Seattle.