Atlanta Rental Market Update
At Solid Source Property Management, we are busy! Karen, Michelle & Marie have been working overtime the last 2 weeks as we have had a spike in activity. People are trying to get settled before the school starts again. We expect this to continue through to the end of the month and then taper off once school starts. So what does that mean for you if you have a vacant property?
The good news is that people are looking. The bad news is that they are pickier than ever. (If you missed my last update, read my June 17th post for more about the market.) So make sure that you have your properties in order – clean, mowed, and in great shape!
I was looking over the reports of our advertising results for the last 2 month’s. As a comparison between the two months, it struck me that while the amount of potential tenant requests have remained fairly consistent between May & June, the number of viewings and actual rental contracts have dramatically increased. (Unfortunately this is a new report, so I wasn’t able to view May versus April, but I would expect that April would have shown less requests. I am looking forward to watching these trends over the next few months and will report trends as they develop.)
More interesting to me about this report was the time of day that information requests are made. In the 8:00 evening hour, there are more than 3 times the average number of requests- followed by a tie for 6 & 4 pm and then 10:00 pm. The 5, 7, & 9 evening hours see a significant drop in requests. I wonder why? In any event, this tells me that when our office is closed and we are not able to respond personally, our marketing presence is still working strong and we are capturing information that allows us to follow up with those people who are interested in our properties.
When you have rental property, having a marketing plan and system is extremely important, especially in today’s market. We need to maximize every lead and opportunity. So at Solid Source Property Management, we have several ways to get information about our properties to the public. In addition to the extensive on-line advertising that we do, we also provide 24 hour information messages for each vacant property through a sign in the yard. The prospective tenant can listen about the property and then patch through to Karen if they want to view it. We also answer our phones with a live person. A lot our competitors don’t, their calls just go to voicemail.
We call and follow up with people who have seen our properties and request feedback and information. This allows us to address any concerns quickly as well as provides us with an opportunity to try and find them another property that they might not have known about if the first property doesn’t fit their needs.
We also pay a high referral fee to other agents who show our properties which is about 2-3 times more than our competitors. Each of these steps means that we are positioned to get the most out of every request and in turn are able to fill our client’s properties as quickly as possible.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Nice!