I have two confirmed availabilities for July 1st.

I have listed both on Zillow as of today. NOT on CL until May 1st (60 days out.)

So far, no responses at all. Which is very different from Craigslist and reinforces where people say they saw my properties (I ask on my pre-screen form - most have said CL over the past several availabilities.) Usually if I list a place at this time of year, multiple responses first day.

I strongly suspect the results will vary by geography.

In SE MA, CL use to be the go to site. In the past few years, the large apartment complexes post dozens of ads each day on CL. This almost immediately pushes your ad down to the 2nd or 3rd page.

Now Zillow is the only site that works.

TW/MA, I know you are right. Our area is so small - and we don't have apartment complexes to speak of, and if we do, they stay full. So they are not continuously advertising.

"but of course no one is following directions or answering pre-screening questions."

Nope, no phone calls.

This is the South, by the time you get through the niceties and the long stories, you've wasted way more than one minute.

I wish I could play you one of the last phone calls...I recorded it AND saved it because it was so comical. The gist of it is, after asking my questions and my telling her it was not going to work based on her answers (I *think* it was income, that part escapes my memory) she got irate and then demanded "Are you from the North?" My response was "I don't think that is germane to this conversation." She responded, "Well if you are this would never work anyway!" and she hung up.

My husband and I replayed it and laughed and laughed, it was very funny.

" I don't want my phone number in the hands of people I would NEVER rent to or even show a place to"

But they don't even provide me with theirs, David - they can do exactly that by answering my preview questions.

WMH, In response to " they are "available to tour" on a certain date and time, and expect me to email them back to set things up. ", I email then back : " Sure, what's a good number to reach you at?" 95% of them reply promptly with their phone number.

So far, three have followed through. One is a self-employed light crystal healer with two service dogs. Another was burned out of a notorious house near here, and both she and her BF have active cases on the court calendars, as well as prior convictions for larceny, larceny of an employee and felony possession with intent to distribute.

The third lives right next door to another of our rentals. He's been there three months paying $600, wants to look at our place for double that.

No David. As noted, I don't want to phone screen. I don't want to talk to the 99 losers who inquire while waiting for the 1 or 2 that I will show the place to...

WMH, how many people contacted you? How many completed your screening questions?

If I had the mindset and nastiness of some posters here, I would say that you're not willing to put in the legwork and do what's necessary to pull in good tenants and that you should SELL ... ALL ... YOUR... RENTALS.

This phrase has several good translations, one is “To guard a tree-stump waiting for rabbits” or “sitting by a stump waiting for a careless hare” — which come from the story of the phrase. Most four character phrases have a story or parable associated with them, in this story, one day, a farmer was working in the fields when he saw a rabbit carelessly run and bump into a tree stump accidentally, it broke its neck and was paralised, the farmer took the rabbit indoors and cooked it, having a great meal. Later on that night he was thinking to himself “wow, I don’t need to work so hard all the time anymore, all I need to do is wait for a rabbit to run and kill itself each day by the stump” so he stopped farming and merely sat at the stump waiting for rabbits to come and run into it.

David, once the tenant gives you their phone number, and you call them back, wouldn’t they THEN have your phone number? Or, do you use a throw away phone? And, even if they don’t have your number, if they figure out who you are ( the couple that owns those small, cute houses by the beach, in this case,) wouldn’t that be able to be discussed on social media in a small community? If you have never lived in the south, it is a whole other world than the north. Just our northern accent makes us suspicious. In the north, phone screening with the same accent as the locals have is NOT ANYWHERE near the same thing if you, David, moved to NC and tried to phone screen down there. That Midwest flat accent is gonna get you run out of town on a rail. And remember, us carpetbaggers are always suspicious. Even though we try to fake an accent, a true southerner can suss it out.

The proof is in the pudding, if we’re using catchy phrases. WMH is running a very successful business. This post was about making first contact, not about the method of interacting once first contact is established.

"wouldn’t they THEN have your phone number? " What are they going to do with it? Nothing comes up when you google it because it's not in ads. I am adopting

As for accents, I grew up in TN. I did not think I had an accent, but my wife remarked that she thought I spoke English weird until she went to TN for the first time...

David I never have trouble filling a vacancy due to sheer luck of the draw of where I live. The two places I am advertising aren't even AVAILABLE until JULY. This is April. Normally I wouldn't even list them until at least May 1st. So I'm just testing the waters with Zillow only right now just because. Maybe I'm bored.

All real estate is local.

I had to take down my ads as some eager beaver admin of a Facebook group found my ads on Zillow and posted them to her group, completely spoiling the test. AND because no one reads the ads and nothing is available until July, I did not want a bunch "Interested!" and "Is this available?" messages for the next few weeks.