It looks like my current tenants are going to likely move out. We are in mid-February and their lease expires on April 28th.

I understand that Dec-Feb are slow months for rentals and prices usually fall due to low demand. And then April-Jun are the best months to list a rental house where prices go up.

I've got 2.5 months until the lease expires. I'd love to get a new tenant in the week after the old ones move out.

If I list it now (mid February), I worry that it will sit on the market longer. And then when people look at the listing they'll see it has been up for a long time and be turned off. So I was contemplating waiting a month until the market was "hotter" (mid-March for example).

List it 30 days before they are going to move.

Listing is easy, showing is another story altogether. Some tenants will deny access, others will cleanup if you give them 50 bux when it rents before the lease expires otherwise they are on the hook for the remainder, but in TX it is not garnished from wages so you have to be good at negotiating.

Do you have a video from the last time it was vacant? I like to point people towards YouTube to get an idea of the space without bothering the current occupants.

When was the last time you were inside the house yourself? Do they take good care of it? Are they the sorts of tenants who can move out in the morning and allow new tenants to move in six hours later? Or will the turnover effort be more significant?

Are there animals involved? Even indoor-only animals have brought in fleas-- and I've had to take properties off the market for a month or two while I got it taken care of.

Anything in Austin in May or June will be snapped up in no time. I wouldn't be too worried. It also has a fluid enough population that I wouldn't be anxious about pinning down the type of person who plans two, three, four months in advance. You may well end up with someone who wants to move in in August and will be happy to pay you June and July in exchange for pinning down the place, even if they're not living there.

I find that 45 days before a vacancy is good for starting to look for a new tenant.

I find that the 15 days before the 30 days period starts brings renters who have existing leases and want to move. Around here, we have apartment shortage, so that many prospective tenants start looking early, plus they can give 30 days notice to present landlord and not have to pay double rent.

Here in Ontario by law tenants must give 60 days notice starting from the beginning of the next whole rental period. So if they wanted to give notice today the 14th February their notice would run 1 March through the end of April for a 1 May departure. It is one of the few things in the Residential Tenancies Act that favours landlords.

Because we have adequate notice we can advertise and show while tenants are in place. It helps to have carefully selected tenants who keep the units in good condition and who are cooperative. With a low vacancy rate (recent numbers were 1.6%) tenants who want to move are looking for a place well ahead of their anticipated moving date. I usually fill a vacancy within 3-4 weeks of showings, and that is after rejecting all undesirable or weak applicants and accepting only rock solid tenants with excellent credit scores, employment histories, landlord references, no accompanying menagerie of undesirable pets etc.

C rental pool does not look longer than 30 days out by me, more like 15 days or ASAP. I also find the longer the listing is on zillow the worse it looks, except that you can put the available date way out to compensate. Prolly field a lot of inquiries who won't read the ad closely and waste your time.

You are spinning your wheels for nothing! I never believe a tenants estimation on their move-out date. Most of the time they go beyond their estimate and throw off my scheduled repairs, upgrades and new tenant move-in.

Instead of killing myself and being on pins and needles, I simply let them move out whenever -- so long as they are current on their rent. NEVER, I mean never allow them to live off of a deposit.....

Then when the x-tenant is out and you can determine what it's going to take to fix up the place.

For example a tenant just moved out of a small 2 bedroom rental of mine. If I slap on some paint, put in carpeting and get it rented by March 1st, I will get $1,600 a month. BUT if I install laminate flooring, custom paint job and new appliances, I can rent out this home for $1850 a month.

We did a rehab last year in June and had it ready to go by mid July. Totally updated - hardwood floors, granite, stainless steel appliances, new sinks, new doors and were slightly above market by $50 - it sat on the market until December!!!