This dovetails onto the confusing market thread:

Something is wrong with our advertising. we’ve heard from many successful landlords on this forum ,experienced landlords who are now receiving few inquiries about their vacancies.

Many ideas are thrown about , some cite our economy as the cause for drop in demand,but I don’t think this is an economic downturn issue.

I think that the reason that we’re not seeing. normal rental demand is that people looking for a rental are unable to find us.

Advertising: here’s what’s happened over the last 20 years in my locale and I suspect it’s the same for most. We moved from newspaper classified advertising as our basis of all advertising not a lot more than a basic description of bedrooms, maybe neighborhood school district , price, a phone number.

when people would look, they already had a pretty good idea of the basics, because without basic information, they wouldn’t have known the newspaper classified ad most useful for rental search.

Fast forward to the days of craigslist, and while it was online and accessible by anyone in the world, it was localized ;as you recall craigslist had a local source you couldn’t just view rentals for the entire state or nation .

As we moved forward to Zillow and Facebook marketplace we began to see a change.

Facebook marketplace receive complaints about scam ads and unfair,unjust practices and they then pull down the advertisement .

over the last eight or 10 years envious,vengeful rejected applicants have sought. to have a vendors ad pulled down as a form of retaliation for having been rejected. These are unfounded claims, but they understand they can turn these these in and get a swipe at this person that rejected their application.

I think this is something like the Airbnb customer review situation that Sid described.

Consequently the property management companies have stopped altogether using Zillow or Facebook marketplace they simply rely on their own websites, their own videos to drive traffic to the website.

Their clients are Google search driven.

When a prospect is looking to relocate and they look for what’s available in a given town on their phone, what they will see are the property management companies, so why would anyone land on Zillow,let alone further search until they find the mom and pop landlords.

Zillows effectiveness relied on property management companies advertising on Zillow supplying steady supply of housing options. Nowadays it isn’t of any use to the prospective tenant.

Zillow is unlikely to regain what they had , or train the populace that whenever you’re looking for a rental to remember the name Zillow and start your search there .

Most people don’t move that often and for them to remember the name of the website to start their search is completely unrealistic.

Prospects know which town they want to move to ,they know how many bedrooms they want, but they don’t know which rental search engine is most prevalent in your area. They know google.

The only people that know Zillow are the people that look at apartments and rentals every day, and typically those type people are not going to be approved for tenancy in our houses.

I just used Google to search for long-term housing in my area.

All the big PMs popped up, but most of them concentrate on vacation rentals and have very few if any long-term houses available. And they only ever have 3/2 or larger homes.

BUT what came up next was the housing group I use on FB. So good to know! It's private - you have to join - but it shows up in a Google search! Yay.

10k members and growing - I think it was well less than half that two years ago. And I actively kick people out for being jerks :)

Okay. Good points and it makes sense. However, wouldn't Google direct you to places like Zillow?

I don't think most mom-and-pop LL's are going to have a website.

They may be buying houses?

That doesn't answer where all the non-qualified are though.

Following..

FB Groups in my area are no longer generating leads like few years ago.

1) lots of scammers and bad leads

2) most group admins are realtors trying to get clients from groups. They either removed my rental ad or never allowed it to post.

3) FB Market is the only place I am posting now

Ask yourself an honest question. Given the process that you have, would you rent to yourself? If the answer is NO!, then either you become a bad person suddenly or perhaps the process some how kicks out people with any kinda flaw.

I don't advertise my qualifications, so I'm not screening them out that way.

I would rent to Ken so I could pet the large dogs.

In my area, mortgages have ALWAYS been lower than rent unless you compare a high end suburban mortgage with a low rent district.

The bad people are out there. Just had one last night. Took her about 3-4 days to be motivated enough to fill out the prequal (FB tenant groups think ANY kind of screening is most horrid and uncalled for).

She has a 500s CS, smokes/vapes and other stuff I found out before she even filled out the prequal--she has a habit of selecting serial child abuser boyfriends that abuse her children. Um, no.

Zillow probably will push your ad down if you don't pay the premium. In our area, the FB housing group is full of evictees and deadbeats so not advertising there.

I even tried a local pennysaver ad which was $$$$. All I got from that was one over 70 woman who didn't want to do anything by texting/automation and refused to follow the process. She would have been overhoused anyway which I don't mind if they have the $$$ but most likely they don't.

I am going to do some direct marketing at the school district and companies nearby. I should have the crown molding finished this Friday and ready for glam shots (some say getting a professional photog for this--I'm going to try this on my own) I have a tripod and they say to shoot at waist's height getting all three walls, and various other pro tips for the cam settings themselves.

Again, would rather it be vacant than drama laced deadbeats. My somewhat mediocre tenant who are lifetime renters, have paid rent late 4 months in a row--with weird excuses such as "we lost a money order" etc. Despite both having good jobs, they allowed their electricity to be shut off in a battle with the utility company as well. And yes, they are getting charged a late fee every.time. I tell everyone "no excuses" b/c I've heard them all.

"some cite our economy as the cause for drop in demand,but I don’t think this is an economic downturn issue"

What do you think an economic downturn issue would look like if this isn't it?

In 35 years of doing this, this is exactly what I expect when the cycle turns down. In general, people don't have money thus aren't looking for nice 3/2 SFH's. If you read between the lines on the posts here you will see that small houses are doing better. When your dollar doesn't stretch as far you tend to be forced to downsize from 3/2 to 2/1 SFH, to an apartment, or move back to mom's couch. The demand shifts down the totem pole. Those with a higher end product are affected more than most.

Advertising? I've lived through 2 big downturns. In those times I had to get creative with advertising. Employers newsletters, incentives, non traditional platforms. Think about where the better paying jobs are and target them where they are. What is the newest platform and how can you use it, Tiktok? Youtube? something else?

The other big consideration, when a good qualified tenant does start looking, he/she's not going to jump through hoops to meet over zealous application requirements, poor quality pictures and words in the add, a delayed response to their inquiry, or someone that won't allow them to have their little dog bruno. They are simply going to take the course of least resistance since there are a lot of options open to them. I'm not proposing to reduce requirements but you have to set the hook first so they don't get away when you design your process.

I have a website. It is a silly little thing with little to no pro looks to it.

I keep it to post openings with pics, to say a little about us and most importantly to have the link to my online application.

Two small towns have my number on their LL list so I do get a few calls from them. Everything not in my contacts list goes to VM and that points them to my website.

I listed my empty through Zillow. This was only the second time I have done that. First time I rented the place to a person who contacted me the first day.

Did not get the same hits as before. I would do a search and my listing came up second I think. Just did a search and they show three places, one came online today, mine is down obviously.

Maybe Zillow isn't the best way. Maybe paying them is better. I did FB years ago and will not subject myself to that again. I look at FB every once in a while to remind myself why I am not interested. Even more years ago than that I put an ad in the local paper. I got the place rented before it was printed. Still had to pay. They also didn't strike it out so I got calls for no reason.

For years I would simply put signs out with arrows leading to the place. Took no time at all to find a candidate. Then a couple people more knowledgeable than me asked why I was making the place available to people without jobs or the moms that wanted the kids to finally leave.

The only sign I had this time was in the window of the empty and it just had the website on it.

Guess I could pay Google to bump my website up, but I don't need that right now with no empties.

some cite our economy as the cause for drop in demand,but I don’t think this is an economic downturn issue"

What do you think an economic downturn issue would look like if this isn't it?

I think business traffic slows, not stops.

Guv schools continue to hire new teachers each year, policemen,firemen, city , county, state, university, guv agencies hire new people each year…these people will need to rent a house. Newlyweds, job transfers, and moving mom closer to the kids remain.

Just for grins, how many "views" on Facebook marketplace did you get the first few days it was listed. I'm betting there are still quite a few views just a lot less than a year or two ago and even less applying. Traffic hasn't completely stopped. That said, I do know that advertising platforms come and go so it's good to continue to look for other venues. I know nothing about tictoc other than to know a lot of the younger's have been spend a lot of time on it, can it be used to advertise? I don't know, certainly worth a look.

However, I still believe a significant portion of the decline is related to the RE cycle. We have moved from the "peak" phase to "contraction" phase in the cycle. To prove my theory you would have to look at vacancy rates at different price points. I believe you would see that it takes much longer today to rent a 3/2 than a cheaper 2/1. I haven't found any national statistics that break it down that way so no way to prove it. So, pick a few properties of each on Marketplace and do your own analysis to see how long until the listing is pulled. Based on what several on here have posted I would bet you will find it takes less than half the time for the 2/1's. It has historically been the leading trend that defines when the market moves from peak to contraction.

You can kind of get there by looking at the national vacancy rate (up 1% in the last two years) and the median rent (down $100/month in the last year). That doesn't sound like much but increased vacancy times are not evenly distributed, the expensive ones get hammered and the cheap ones get filled.

Just thinking about the implications here for buildings with larger units. What prompted this? I just ran across someone on FB trying to sell a 3 family with two 3/1s and one 2/1. Seemed desperate and wanted to sell off market to "save the realtor's commission". There's something else going on there. The place was newly renovated with one unit vacant. There was no shortage of people clamoring for more information.

If bigger more expensive units are difficult to rent in this environment, I'd expect that's going to be reflected in the market at some point in terms of investor demand and the price. I just don't think the changed conditions have been factored in because many are not yet aware. These folks clamoring to buy at any price are firmly seated looking out the rear view mirror at the recent past and unaware of the falling knife they're about to catch. I think a serious correction is underway that will leave a bunch of folks underwater with negative cash flow.

The last two times a lot of people went under I was there to brush them off and take their problems away for them.

Unfortunately it is not as easy to get financing now as it was then plus I spent all of the reserves I had for good deals on other deals.

Sisco, I agree w the premise that platforms and means and methods evolve and we need to adapt. But it does not explain the calm before the storm I feel is coming. I'm on zillow, pay to be at the top and don't have large property companies in my municipality as competition, LL w larger holdings, yes. I'm renting multifamily 1 n 2 brs so already more affordable than a house. Have had something or other listed since Nov. All the prospects didn't drop zillow for tictok last month. All of a sudden there is a lull. This is looking like the big R times, when big outfits offered deep discounts on units in the city and where people migrated from Manhattan to Brooklyn where it was cheaper. MikeA has it right as a contraction.

A little late to the party but just rented a 2/1/1

I'll share the results.

12 Inquires.

10 Applications.

2 Applications withdrawn.

3 Applications declined with a click of a button.

2 Applications approved one good credit and one excellent credit.

David, what do you think you are doing differently to get those results?

6x6, that's a good question.

When people inquired thru my Zillow ad I directed them to the website. But they would have to manually type or attempt to copy/paste it.