Fiesta Hermosa and Memorial Day Weekend 2011 in the South Bay of Los Angeles

Fiesta Hermosa and Memorial Day Weekend 2011 in the South Bay of Los Angeles

How to put a Rental property on craigslist for free

How to put a Rental property on Craigslist for free
Sometimes as a Realtor we do special favors for really great people. 
This week it was a favor for my Momma. 
She needed me to help her neighbor get her little guest house rented. 
She is a cute little old lady. She does not have Internet access and really had no business meeting strangers. 
She contacted several property management companies to help her but NONE of them called her back.  I couldn't believe it! 

I told her I would help her just cuz she was a sweetheart and I wanted to restore her faith in Real Estate agents.  Besides... she said i could blog about it too.
 

I stopped buy her place in the afternoon and snapped a few pictures.

Then downloaded them to my computer. 

Take at least one front of the property picture

 Always take a kitchen photo

4 to be exact,  That is all that is allowed unless you want to do a custom one. 

Pictures are a must for Craigslist! 

I then opened a FREE account with craigslist by going to http://www.craigslist.net/

It was easy,  just follow the directions. 

Pick a user name,  a password and agree to the simple terms. 

BINGO! account opened! 

Next select the area that you wish your ad to be placed. 

Title the ad.  Be clever.  This is a studio apartment...but I knew I would get lots more interested tenants if I called it a Guest House.  It really is a guest house. 

A little house in the back of a single family residence. 

I wrote a cute add describing the best features of the property and all the details.

Darling Guest House in Torrance

Studio-Doll House

New kitchen

New bathroom

Full size stove included

Refrigerator included

water and trash paid

Great neighborhood

no pets

no smokers

good credit a must

$875 month

month to month only

I did not put the address.  I only put cross streets and the City.  I did not list a contact phone number.

 I had them reply to an email address.  This way I could communicate with them a few times via email first.  This way I could ask the questions and give them the answers to their questions before I even scheduled the appointment to see the unit.  I was able to eliminate several showings and bad credit tenants. 

I only scheduled appointments with serious tenants. 

There are lots of people that just like to look at rentals. Don't waist your time. 

With in 1 hour I had 9 emails from interested parties. 

I only showed it 3 times in three days

In less then a week I had it rented to a wonderful gal with fantastic credit and a great job! 

I was sure to check her credit, verify that she really was employed and verify her past rental history. 

If you hired a real estate agent or property management company to do this same service you could pay as much as 10% of the first years rent.  In this case she may have payed $1,050.

I would have charged 6% so the cost would have been $630

Sometimes it pays to be a sweet little old lady.

I love craigs list and have found my last 4 homes using this free service. 

If you need help putting a property on craigslist feel free to email me with your questions.