Tag Archive - craigslist

The Double Take Listing: Renting isn’t a Guessing Game

By Jennifer Chan on February 22, 2012 in Marketing with 0 Comments

This Craigslist listing title could use some work.

Titles are important. They are the single item visible on Craigslist that will get you that click you want from renters. Based on this fact, titles should be informative and creative to attract the attention of the renters who are  already overwhelmed by the number of caps-lock listings they see running down the page.

This being said, take a look at the title above. While the price for the 4 bedroom unit seems like a steal due to its Section 8 status, it doesn’t reveal much else. The ad succeeds in being eye-catching because it offers a great price for the number of rooms, but it’s also hurting its chances of getting more interested viewers because of its lack of information. Sure, it reveals that it qualifies for low-income subsidized housing, but if you look at the most typical Craigslist posts, the title will include the price and number of bedrooms/bathrooms as well as the unit’s features. This title stops short of giving valuable information, and could definitely use some work.

This Craigslist ad gives little information about the rental.

Now take a look at the body of the listing. There are quite a few problems, most notably the lack of information. When apartment hunters are looking for a place to live, they don’t want to have to call you just to find out exactly how many bathrooms there are (possibly one, but this ad doesn’t make it clear), or whether or not there’s laundry on-site. The search process is already complicated enough without you giving them next to no information.

The field for your listing on Craigslist allows you to enter in more than one sentence — use it! Visitors will appreciate whatever information you give them, and in this case, the unclear, punctuation-free listing only confuses them. Write in sentences or highlight the features in bullet points. Even if your unit is nicely priced, they’ll still pass you by because this listing is absent of all the details that would help in their search. Be clear and descriptive, renters don’t want to guess at your words, they want to know exactly what they’ll be paying for!

Writing a Craigslist ad might not be your forte, but spend a few extra minutes writing a better description and your efforts will definitely pay off.

 

 

Should Rental Ads be Posted in All Caps?

By Sarah Gabot on February 3, 2012 in Marketing with Comments Off

Avoid writing rental ads in all caps.
When navigating through rental listing sites like Craigslist, you’ll frequently run into apartment subject lines written in all caps. You find these subject lines so frequently, it’s easy to mistaken this as a good practice. When it comes to writing subject lines or any content for rental ads, I say it’s better to turn off the caps lock.

Try to think about what writing in all caps says about you.  It may not put you or your business in the most positive light.

People may think you’re trying too hard to demand attention. All caps is visually distracting, and makes words pop out. However, when you write an entire ad or sentence in capital letters, it loses its effect and makes you look like you’re trying a little too hard to grab their attention.

You’ll be perceived as unprofessional. Using all caps can seem like a workaround to using proper sentence capitalization. Renters may believe that you don’t know how to write and you’ll come off as uneducated or unprofessional.

It’s visually difficult to read. There’s a reason why people are turned off by all caps. It’s because it’s more challenging to read. Think about it: all caps lacks the up-and-down look of lower case letters, giving it a box-like appearance. The depth lower case letters give (think about letters that are taller or go under writing lines like ‘d’, ‘j’ and ‘y’) is easier for you to read. Therefore, rental ads using all caps damage their readability.

To those using all caps in rental ads, I suggest you reconsider this style of writing. It’s eye-catching to a degree, but is mostly a turn-off or distracting to renters than anything else. You want to be able to communicate your rental availabilities clearly, and writing in all caps won’t help you accomplish that.

 

The Double Take Listing: Too Much Slang, Not Enough Description

By Sarah Gabot on February 2, 2012 in Marketing with Comments Off

Don't use too much slang in your Craigslist listings

 

Cursing and slang in property listings are funny and eye-catching, attracting renters to click the ad. After the laughs at the witty remarks and pop culture references are over, how many inquiries do you have at the end of the day?

This Craigslist posting is full of slang and even a popular Kanye West and Jay-Z song reference. While these references are amusing to see in a property ad, they’re not effective in getting leases closed.

What about the other renters that won’t ‘get’ it?

People won't understand the slang used in your descriptions.

When you use words like “sick”, “sweet”, and “cray” to describe your properties, think about other people from different age groups and cultures reading your listing. Will they understand? Most of these terms are used by young adults, but may not be understood by people who grew up with different slang or those who learned English as a second language. By doing this, you’re reducing your market to attracting a select demographic that talk like this.

It’s okay to use commonly used descriptive words to describe your unit, as long as it’s accurate. Renters browsing through Craigslist are looking for apartments that match their preferences of amenities, square footage and other features. You can describe the property as “cray” or “sick” as much as you want, but it won’t help renters with their apartment rental search.

Don’t forget the property amenities.

Texting acronyms and slang won't help listings.

The emphasis of this property listing was the slang and the intention to increase hype about the unit. If this agent got lots of listing opens, that’s great! The next step is to actually sell the property to lease. After all, people looking through listings are trying to find a new home.

This listing lacked the additional details about the property needed to make a decision. It skimped on including the details about the amenities and the floorplans, which are features that renters really look for to help make their apartment rental decisions.

In my opinion, more energy could have been put into writing content that attracts renters than adding hype and slang.

Five Ways to Increase Leads from Online Rental Listings

By Kyle Paice on January 31, 2012 in Marketing with 1 Comment

Download our most popular whitepaper. Know when the best time to post your ads and how your subject line length affects your ad. Learn five ways to increase leads from your online listings. This guide, combined with the sequel, which teaches you how to write content that converts, will make your apartment ads attract more renters than ever.

Rental brokers and apartment finders use RentJuice to post thousands of advertisements per day, all over the web. Analyzing the data generated from those ads can provide insights into what makes good (or bad) advertisements, especially as they appear on Craigslist. In this paper, we’ll look at different ad components and share five tips for ensuring your ads get more visibility online.

 

The Double Take Listing: Renovate, Then Take Pictures

By Sarah Gabot on January 26, 2012 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

We understand that it’s difficult to take professional-looking pictures of your rental property when you’re not a photographer. While you may be no Ansel Adams, nail down the basics of rental property photography before you start clicking the camera.

In this Craigslist listing, there were four pictures. There was also something wrong with each one. Learn from this ad and avoid these apartment photography blunders. 

Clean up your property before taking rental property photos.

Lesson #1: Clean up.

Property photos shouldn’t look like a renter just moved out. When there are boxes, and clutter all over the place, it makes your property look unpolished. 

Instead, move the clutter or stage your unit. At the very least, push aside all of the boxes and unnecessary items from the camera shot, so your place looks empty, not messy. 

Lesson #2: Take meaningful pictures. 

Take meaningful property pictures for ads.
Don't just take property pictures of anything.

Don’t just take pictures of anything! You want to make your unit look its best, remember? It’s really difficult to highlight entire rooms when you’re taking pictures of sinks and closet doors. It doesn’t do your property any justice, and may cause renters to believe you have something to hide or the room is tiny. 

As mentioned in a previous post on rental property photography, try to take pictures including three walls instead of one or two. This will make your room look larger and give bigger scope of the room. 

Lesson #3: Avoid taking pictures of construction 

Clean up your property and don't take pictures of construction for photos.

Repainting your unit? Great. Renters don’t want to see it get painted. They don’t want photographs of your property being worked on, they want to see the end result. 

Pictures like this make properties look sloppy and doesn’t give renters a good idea of what they’d move into. Exercise some patience before taking the photograph and wait for your property to renovated first, then take pictures. 

Now that you know what pictures not to post, learn how to take better property pictures. Or, better yet, learn how to make great content for your online listings.

The Apartment Search: How a Renter Searches Online

By Sarah Gabot on January 23, 2012 in Renters, Uncategorized with 1 Comment

 

Renters looking for apartments will use Google or Craigslist for listings.

Renters looking for a new apartment need to go through hundreds of listings. 

Renters who need to to move or find a new apartment head straight for their computers to help start the search for a new home. It can be difficult to figure out what renters are thinking as they go through this process.

Ellen Mae Valdez, a registered nurse, who relocated from California to Texas, told us about her rental search process. Her methods prove that renters are particular and sensitive to many small details that are frequently overlooked by rental professionals.

The search started on Google.

Completely unfamiliar with her new hometown, Valdez started her research for her new Texas home on Google. She searched “Apartments in Temple, Texas,” which is a very common search for people looking for apartments in a specific city. In fact, the most common search word for rental searches is “apartment,” as noted in the guide on creating “Better Rental Websites.”

While on Google, Valdez looked at the results on the first page, assuming that the best results would appear first. Renters are quick to make decisions, and expect Google to give them the best results first. That’s why renters focus their attention on the top search results, and neglect the rest. If you want your rental business to get visibility on Google, rental professionals need to channel energy into SEO, which helps get websites higher in Google search results.

Then, she went to Craigslist.

While some renters go to Craigslist first, Valdez went to it second. She skipped listings with subject lines that obviously were visually trying to grab her attention. “I skipped the ones with all caps or up and down letters,” she said, “It’s like they were yelling at me. I didn’t like that. It was also unreadable.” Writing visually distracting subject lines grab renters’ attention, but make sure it’s the right kind.

Once she started opening apartment ads, she looked for one major item: a link to an external website. Apartment rental listing on Craigslist are a sufficient way of getting essential information about a unit to a prospective renter, but a rental website is expected to give more details. Valdez said, “If they don’t have a link, I don’t go much further.”

She felt that if a rental business is professional, it should have a website to support it. She said, “The website is the first impression you get from the business.”

Websites need to be intuitive.

Rental websites need to answer all the questions renters may have by including all the information they need. Requiring renters to call for more information is one additional step they don’t really want to take.

“The websites needed to be especially intuitive,” Valdez said, “They need to include enough details about the apartment, and be organized.” Websites that didn’t provide the details she needed, she abandoned.

Rental websites that are easy to navigate are essential for renters. Renters on websites that don’t tend to their needs will find one that will. Websites that cover their bases will get rental leads.

Learn about how this renter decided on a property based on one factor in tomorrow’s blog post.

 

The Double Take Listing: One Heck of a Deal You Can’t Read

By Sarah Gabot on January 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

Apartment listings should be readable and understandable.

This Craigslist listing enticed prospective renters to click on the listing based on a redundant, vague title and not necessarily a “good” subject line. From the title, the ad makes only one point clear: the apartment is a money-saving deal. Inside the posting, you may have some difficulties reading about this “deal” of an apartment. 

We get it: It’s a money saver. 

This Craigslist subject line says that this apartment is a good price in three different ways. You don’t need to say that the property is a “heck of a deal,” “freakin bargain,” and will “save money” all in one line. We get it. You only had to say it once. 

This person could have used this space in the subject line to detail the apartment’s features by using effective descriptive words. “No Ball Sh*t” is not only inappropriate, but it doesn’t make sense. It may take a couple reads before the renter realizes what phrase it actually is supposed to say.

Descriptive words that provide more information about the property itself will be more effective. Subject lines that are amusing like this will only get clicks out of curiosity of what your listings might look like, not necessarily because renters are interested in your property. 

Don't add backgrounds to your property ads that make it difficult to read.

Can’t read the listing. 

If you squint, you could probably read the property description just fine. Or, renters have to highlight the text to give the words a solid background to read against. You probably shouldn’t trouble your prospective renters that are trying to read your ad by including a background that makes your listing difficult to read. 

If renters can’t read your listing easily, it’ll be challenging to entice them to apply for your property. Including a fancy background isn’t worth it when it affects your listing’s readability. 

Don’t use acronyms you don’t mean. 

If the apartment is the cheapest out there, then it should say so. There’s no need for acronyms or odd misspellings of common words. Besides, if someone were to search Craigslist for “cheapest out there,” this listing will not come up (unless “O.U.T.” stands for a rental feature we’re unaware of). Anything that doesn’t help you gain ad views probably isn’t a good idea. 

Read about more Craigslist practices to avoid to start getting ad clicks that matter. 

The Greatest Hits: Best of the RentJuice Blog 2011

By Sarah Gabot on December 30, 2011 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

Ready to close more rentals in 2012?

Just in case you’ve missed out on some of the RentJuice Blog posts this year, don’t worry, we’ve summed up the most popular ones for you. Check them out and start your rental business on the right foot in 2012. 

3 Tips for Better SEO for Apartment Rental Websites – Learn how to get higher on a renter’s search results using SEO. 

How to Build a Successful Facebook Page for Rental Professionals -Increase your exposure to potential renters and capture leads using Facebook.

4 Tips to Improve Your Phone Etiquette to Win Tenants – Don’t lose potential renters over the phone. Polish your phone skills when talking to tenants. 

Make Your Rental Website Lead-Generating Machine – Learn about the six key strategies used to build a successful lead-generating website. 

How I (Almost) Got Scammed, Part I & Part II – Read about how I almost was scammed when looking for a new apartment. 

Better Craigslist Subject Lines, Best Practices – Lure prospective renters to reading your listing with a great subject line. 

 

Descriptive Words and Phrases for Your Craigslist Ads

By Sarah Gabot on December 29, 2011 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

When you’re writing property ads for Craigslist, describe your unit with effective descriptive words, not fluff. Prospective renters will come across hundreds of “adorable” and “nice” apartments, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re grabbing their attention.

You want to use words that renters will use to search Craigslist so that your listing appears in their search results. Use these words in the subject line or the body of your property ad.

Words that work

“Quiet” – Implies that the neighborhood is pleasant and safe. 

“Walkable” – Shows that the the unit is near amenities and conveniences.

“Open” – Usually used to describe a floor plan, and demonstrates spaciousness. 

You’re describing a unit that renters cannot see, so use words that put an image in a person’s head to help them imagine what your property is like. Also, consider the adjectives that elaborate a feature of your apartment. For example, a living room and kitchen can be described as “open.”

Words to leave out

“Beautiful”

“Amazing” 

“Gorgeous”

Why do these word not work well? Try entering “beautiful” into a Craigslist apartment search and see how many results you get. The city of San Francisco currently results in 420 listings. In contrast, the term “walkable” results in 7 listings. While these words all imply that your property is a good-looking unit, what person would describe their unit otherwise? All apartments on the marketplace are attractive. 

 

Part II: How I (Almost) Got Scammed on Craigslist

By Sarah Gabot on December 20, 2011 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

Read “Part I: How I (Almost) Got Scammed on Craigslist.“ 

The “ideal” apartment I found on Craigslist slowly began to unravel itself into an obvious scam in a series of e-mail exchanges. The supposed owner, Lavonda Robbins, of a property in Honolulu became increasingly pushy and tried to use religion to try to scam me into sending her money in Maryland.

As the property slowly revealed itself to be a scam, my values of honesty in a rental professional solidified.

Tugging religious strings.

Knowing that keys were going to be sent to me was extremely suspicious. I told her that I wouldn’t send any money or anything until I was able to step inside the apartment.

She quickly e-mailed back trying to lure me back by using trust and religious reasons. She said, “ Please I’m doing this transaction based on Trust & Honesty and again I want you to stick to your words, I’m putting everything into Gods hand, so please do not let me down in this property of mine. I’m doing this because of God & as a good Christian.”

At this point, she seemed desperate. I didn’t find it professional for someone to use religion to beg someone into their property.

At the end of the e-mail, she swore to send pictures of the property for me to reconsider. My guard was up high, but I saw no harm in an e-mail with pictures. So, we had one more exchange.

The pictures didn’t match.

Lavonda Robbins sent another e-mail that contained pictures of the apartment I had my eye on. It was the last chance I was giving the apartment I was clearly having bad vibes on.

The pictures she sent were photos of a nice, clean apartment with a black granite kitchen. Once I saw this, I immediately knew something was wrong. Scammer didn’t know that I bookmarked the original Craigslist post. The kitchen countertops of the Craigslist listing I saw were white.

My communications with this scam artist immediately stopped. I later discovered that the e-mail address Lavonda Robbins sent messages from was deleted a few weeks after, confirming the false ad.

Since this experience, I’ve vowed to never work with a rental professional I didn’t trust ever again.

The lesson.

Rental professionals need to be honest and trustworthy. Period.

When it comes to rental professionals, trust isn’t a big deal; it’s a huge deal. Trust and honesty in a rental professional is invaluable. According to a RentJuice study of “What Renters Want,” 40 percent of renters said that honesty is the most valued quality in a rental professional. You need to trust your rental professional because he or she will not only manage your home, but also your money. Once renters lose trust, you can almost guarantee that you will lose their business as well as their network of friends and family.

 

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