I tried to find out where savvy successful people would look for a rental if they had to rent a place to live. Unfortunately my survey wasn't very helpful. Everyone had a different answer.

Apartments dot com got two votes, Rent dot com got 2 votes, and that is the same company so they got 4. Much more than anyone else. I listed my vacancies on their website and in 6 weeks had exactly one inquiry that originated from them.

Craigslist got 2 votes. That is where I always found good tenants, but one response each to ads for two different houses this time and the ad up for 6 weeks.

Everyone else got one vote: direct to management company, zillow, google, realtor dot com, newspaper, and one for military by owner dot com.

One person would go directly to a large apartment complex and go to their management office.

So, where do the good tenants look for a rental? I don't know. Nearly all my responses have been from Zillow and I finally signed one up, but everyone else had low credit score, often no landlord references, not enough income, criminal record.

I tried to advertise on Realtor dot com but as far as I can tell, my ad never actually got posted. It's an odd site with mostly small cheaper places that don't look so good and I question whether or not there is anything like that that actually exists in my town. Do they run fake ads to increase their traffic?

I use Craigslist, Zillow and FB: I copy my CL ad to a local housing group here - not the Marketplace.

The responses - since May - have been abysmal. People making $2000/month wanting a $1700/month place and such. Family of 5 or more with multiple pets for a small two bedroom.

Just nothing. We have one that went empty yesterday - rented through end of July - and have ZERO prospects. I've shown it ONCE since May. ONCE.

I guess I got lucky using Zillow.

Used to be I would put signs out with arrows. Started using Zillow and have done better.

Still get the dregs but that is to be expected. Most of the bad ones don't even care about the price. They just send I wanna look comments.

Lots of pics and info plus sending them to my website for additional info and application has helped.

I really believe that it is all dependent on your location. I will not use FB at all. Never tried CL.

Got my people before I had the place ready. (Not like WMH does, but at least it was early)

Also got others stacked up, once the good ones started coming in.

My places are not at the top of the market, but I have increased them and nobody has whined to me about it.

I used CL for a long while but it seemed that the quality of applicants kept declining.

Since March, I have had 3 legit tours with qualified applicants evidently found out a reputation of the Town being a welfare town as it is the seat of the county... they probably ghosted me after the tour even though there was no signs of vagabonds hanging out.

I've I've had many inquiries from the dregs and several people that have been turned down more than once due to terrible previous rental history.

One of my fellow landlords in our local landlord group has been complaining about the same thing one town over which is seen as more prosperous than the town I have rentals in. Vast majority of people have bad credit, low income and she was wondering if she is just going to have to break down and rent to nothing but Section 8.

I like basing business on a known relationship. If you think you can find a quality relationship based SOLELY on a single website, you have more faith in humans than I do.

Instead, talk with HR if you are looking for people with jobs. Since I tend to favor folks who have jobs and HR hands out jobs, they are easily approached. Offer them a small box of chocolates for the office or doughnuts and they will feel obligated to help you so they get more chocolate or breakfast. It is strange, but the more you give - the more you get.

It will take only a little bit of work to see who is doing the hiring currently. New job - new house is my school of thought.

When you go to the HR department do you have a flier or some kind of handout that can be posted on a board?

New mini-hospital is finally online between two towns that I hold in. I want to go in with the hey I can help new employees approach.

Will dropping off a biz card suffice? I would doubt it. But then again hanging a sign on a big corkboard might not get the info out either.

I like Jeffrey's approach that I can say we have a Hospital Employee Program going on.

Also of concern is not having enough units to fill the needs. Tough spot to be in, right? But while I like having a waiting list, I am small enough and do not typically have a lot of turnover so my inventory is always low.

Could that cause problems as well? Someone sees the signage that states we have a Hospital Employee Program set up just for them, but we never have anything available. Could make one seem like a fraudster of sorts.

Team up with two other investors about the same size as you. How can you do it? The industry is too fragmented to start with and local governments are counting on it staying that way.