I have four new apartments to rent.

I decided to switch up last week and open the floodgates with an open house like I used to do rather than attempting a pre-screening first. I responded to inquiries with a schedule for the open houses. If someone can't attend on the date of the open house, they need to complete a pre-screener to get a specific time for them alone. This past weekend I set aside an hour on Saturday and Sunday. I had about 5 people come by on Saturday and none on Sunday however I was able to get one unit rented to a couple who came on Saturday. A month of requesting pre-screeners with my google form produced nothing.

This week I'm having the open house on Thursday evening and Saturday morning. And unlike last week, I went all out this week actually promoting the open house specifically. I think I'll wind up with more attendees this week due to that. We'll see.

I see this as only a slight change in the process that actually takes less time and possibly produces more results. My only response to inquiries is a canned response with the open house schedule and basic rental criteria. The screening process remains the same.

Switching back to your "Old" method should solve your vacancy troubles. Like you, when I schedule an open house, listing a Date, Time and Location, I first will have a week day showing, from 10am to 1PM, a 3 hour window. This is my first morning attempt.

Next I will try a day or two later, for an late afternoon showing, around 3PM to 6PM.

If I still don't have a great applicant, I'll try one weekend day, an early showing.

I don't demand someone complete a Pre - screening form. Why? Because that would be construed as discriminatory. Instead, when I, my wife, daughter or property manager takes a call from an ad, we limit ourselves to the basics.

Why are you looking for an apartment in NO-HO (North Hollywood Arts District)?

How many will be living with you?

What is your source of income, how long on the job and monthly paycheck?

Then if all sounds right, I ask them to bring with them the usual items, Pay Stub, Bank/Savings Statement, Drivers License, etc.

Ken:

Jason:

Jason, is that number consistent with your area?

I would guess that I don't have that many inquiries with ten open units.

Six, the realtor interviewed them and sent them to the open house.

In my market there is just too much Riff Raff to not do a pre-screener. I would never hold an open house with all of the can collectors, miscreants and grocery cart pushers wandering around. Squatters paradise.

Just two small towns over they won't do anything about a hobo who is living in their car since July right on the main drag and right in front of a sign that says no long-term parking 24 hours only.

I have not had a vacancy in an eon, but faced with two now. I am shocked that people will tolerate ZERO pre-screening. Not conversational, "oh, what brings you to this part of town?" or direct but basic, "how's your credit"?

Even "what's your phone number in case I need to cancel" is a 50/50 shot.

We only offer prospective tenant self showings using smart lockboxes through a company called Rently. We started doing this in 2016 and it's worked great. Prospective tenants love it because of the flexibility- they can see the property seven days a week from 8am-8pm. We like it because we don't need to waste time showing the property and we're able to get a lot of people through the house. Sure, a lot of people are unqualified but they didn't waste our time seeing the place.

Understandably, a lot of landlords are freaked out about folks being unaccompanied in the property but we have had very few issues in the last 9 years (Usually someone forgets to make sure the door is locked- although the same thing happened more often when we used to use Realtors from 2010-2015). Never had any theft, squatting, etc. Rently has a lot of security measures in place. The tenant needs a driver's license/credit card, valid phone number and they have to take a selfie in order to set up the showing. Basically, all of the person's information is verified to protect against bad actors.

I have prospective tenants send a pic of their DL before showing via lockbox.

Had not considered the selfie. That would help keep someone from using another person's credentials I guess. I might add that to the list.

The lockbox thing wouldn't work for me as I've four different units to show. It's just easier to set aside the time for the open house.

I spent some time this week driving traffic to this week's open house. Turbotenant has a feature that allows you to sent invites for a designated time and date. I sent one to each lead. I also opened my calendar on Zillow and allowed people to book using the open house times. Between those two sources, 10 people have booked appointments. We'll see who shows up.

In addition to those two, I sent invites to my business FB page followers and boosted a page ad advertising the units and open house. Also advertised on Craigslist. I'm also answering the phone. That's pretty minimal though as few actually call; most communication is via messaging. I'm hoping for a good attendance this weekend. We'll see.

I wish you the best with your open house(s) GKARL.

But why not just have four lockboxes? Then you have all the empty places covered. Code them all the same for this round. Let people go from one to the other at their own pace.

Zero,

I will he honest with you, I didn't consider multi units with common entrances.

That would be a no so for me with the lockbox showings.

My places have their own entrances, since I just have SFHs and Duplexes.