Being a real estate property owner has not been easy during the recession. The mortgage payments keep coming and lessees who lose their jobs or see their business decline have unilaterally decided to reduce, delay or stop payments. In many cases, you have vacancies, but you cannot pay afford to pay a service or a person to list them for you. Furthermore, in this market you cannot count of them to continually list them for you, especially when the property have not moved in a couple of months. It's hard to keep the enthusiasm up for anyone.
Fortunately, I have found three free, do-it-yourself services that have been particularly helpful. First is Craigslist (www.craigslist.com). Second is Rentlinx (www.rentlinx.com), and third is Loopnet (www.loopnet.net). They are all free at the basic level, and if you do manage to rent out some of your properties, you can send them some love and sign up for a membership.
First, we all know that you can do your listing on Craigslist for free. However, if you do not refresh them, they quickly fall to the bottom. Most readers will not have time or patience to scroll through page after page of listing, especially when there are so many vacancies. So you have to refresh them every 48 hours. Craigslist has other limitations, in the you can only post 4 pictures and they cannot total more than 10 MB.
Second, Rentlinx, www.rentlinx.com, has been very helpful. The basic and free level is very good. They aggregate for many other websites, including Show Me the Rent (www.showmetherent.com), trovit (www.trovit.com), and others (including Craigslist every 15 days). You can list up to 10 residential properties, which much more flexibility in the pictures and details in the listing. You can refresh every hour, and watch your web traffic go up and compare month to month. Rentlinx is a real gem. The customer service folks here are really wonderful and responsive even if you are a free member! No strong sales pressure tactics.
Third, for commercial properties, I like Loopnet.net (www.loopnet.com). They allow you to list your first three properties for free. Loopnet.com say that their service will get you 10 times more leads, but I always found that they provide me enough leads as a “courtesy” to keep me going. When the listing are stale, they will prompt you to refresh your leads. Loopnet is also an aggregates many other services. Again, don't forget to send them some love it they manage to help you out.
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