Property Management Marketing | Part 2 | Building Waitlists & Pre-Marketing

 Summary: Jeremy Tallman is the President and Managing Broker for T&H Realty Services in Indianapolis. He is talking with us on The Property Management Show today about pre-marketing and the success he’s had in building waitlists for properties that are soon to be available in his portfolio of rental homes. While this isn’t a new concept in the property management and real estate industries, it has come to mean different things to different people. We’re looking at how it impacts the industry and what it might mean for you in limiting vacancy rates and marketing your rental homes more efficiently. Key Takeaways: * Pre-marketing is the process of marketing a rental home and generating interest before it is officially available for showings. * Property managers should take advantage of software that allows them to build waitlists with interested tenants * Pre-marketing & building waitlists can save property managers time and money, but only if you have the proper internal processes in place to support your pre-marketing system. Catch our full Property Management Marketing series: Property Management Marketing | Part 1 | The Rise of Zumper & Facebook Marketplace Property Management Marketing | Part 3 | How Owner Marketing Has Changed Pre-Marketing in Property Management: The Baseline Jeremy does not show any homes while tenants are still living there. This was something he did before embracing the pre-marketing platform he currently uses, but now all showings commence after a property is turned and made ready. The right systems must be in place for effective pre-marketing. Technology plays a big role. What pre-marketing means to Jeremy is giving the property the best chance to be leased quickly as soon as showings can occur. Rently is a valuable tool in this process. Like other showing services and lockbox resources, it provides a waitlist that helps with pre-marketing. Previously, if a home was coming onto the rental market sometime in the future, you could simply say “Coming Soon.” A lot of property managers found that difficult to manage, however. People would call about availability and information. That’s hard to administer and scale. Keeping track of all the follow up can be overwhelming. With Rently, Jeremy and his team put homes in waitlist mode. This is the pre-marketing and pre-leasing sweet spot. People can register for the waitlist and they’re immediately informed when it’s live and ready to be seen. Staying on top of expectations is a big part of this. If you say your property will be available on October 15, people on that waitlist will expect it to be ready for viewings on October 15. Otherwise, you can create a lot of frustration. The software allows property managers and marketing professionals to see who is on the waitlist. They know how many people are interested and they know when those prospective tenants joined the waitlist. The data is valuable in setting a final rental price, collecting applications, and scheduling showings. What Does the Waitlist Show Renters? On the waitlist, prospective renters have access to the same pictures and descriptions that they’d see on any normal listing. With brand new properties that have never been leased and are occupied by an inherited tenant, Jeremy’s team will have to get whatever pictures they can, at least of the property’s exterior. If the home has been marketed in the past, those older photos will be used so people can get a general sense of what it looks like inside. When the listing goes live, there’s an accurate portrayal of the home.