Posted an ad for one of our apartments to see the results for that apartment at this time of year, at a specific price point and to see the number of and quality of prospects.

I posted on Apartments dot com as they already have my former ads:all I had to do was update them with a few details.

Have any of you done this to test your market when you didn't have an opening yet? I do have a renter there currently. Does Apt.com show the address online? I can't tell from what I can see.

I planned on testing the market myself, but I don't want to do it until the house is ready to show. If I were to test it before that, I would need to be sure the address was hidden.

I have three of my four studios empty right now after major renovations, so I just listed them on Craigslist, FB and Apartments.com. Maybe Zillow is included too, but it's the free version.

6X: Just went to check my ad and realized the address is shown, so I took it off market. I got one inquiry right away. When we were taking some measurements there we noted someone stopped by looking around the outside. Not a good thing. For my short research I decided to check the prospect. He gave me some info and credit score range. From what I was able to find out, he would be a good candidate.

Lesson learned. While this is our most popular places as it's across from a nature preserve, at one time I had time renting it. Looking back It had been adbvertised for 2 weeks with few inquiries. I wondered if it was not a good ad, so I changed it and put new pictures. That made the difference.

WMH: Wanna bet you rent them all, unless someone disqualifies. Update us after the showings!

I listed one apartment with a ready by date that comes up tomorrow. It has been with Zillow for 6 days.

I went ahead and put the address in since I am there daily, not much left in there tool wise and I have a camera set up.

Getting responses. Nearly none of them read the info that says go to my website to fill out my application.

But it is nice to have a list, albeit small, before the place is done. I did get a couple decent prospects, so I am time ahead.

So you listed the place but do not have a need to fill it, or has the tenant given notice?

I have two studios coming available for rent and the pickings are very slim. I've had over 100 inquiries and maybe about four showings out of those who passed pre-screening and still haven't filled. It's coming up on 45 days. This is my typical experience. The demand is certainly there, it's just the lack of qualified applicants. This is supposedly in a tight rental market. There is no shortage of choice for the best applicants. There is a shortage for the marginal applicants.

ZERO: Yes, I posted an ad with no need to fill. Tenant has not given notice and renewed a couple months ago. She is an excellent tenant. When she moved in a couple years ago she said she would be looking to buy in a couple years, which usually means breaking a lease when a house is found, so I thought I'd punch a higher rent to see what the market might bear and what quality of prospects would show interest. When the first and immediate taker would qualify nicely, is a fireman for several years. Not to lead him on, I pulled the ad and told him circumstances had changed. I didn't expect that at all.

I technically have two vacancies right now. One is a brand new apartment that we've just remodeled. The building hasn't been occupied since 2017. I'm getting a lot of responses, none of them good. Got one out of state professional tenant, possibly two testers, and the usual 3DS. Druggies, drama and deadbeats.