Below we’ve compiled average monthly rental data for 2 Bedroom Apartments in 8 different cities from 3 different websites: RentVine, RentBits, and the local HomeTownRent site.  The data shows some variation both between websites and cities.

If you’re trying to figure out how to price your rental unit, pegging the rent to average rates from these or other market data sources can be tricky.  There are a lot of factors – such as the number of bathrooms, location, age and condition of home, amenities, and so on – which will heavily impact the rent the unit can sustain.  But having a rough idea of the ranges, and examples of what other properties command, is very important.

We always recommend that property managers listing on a HomeTownRent website do a search on the site as if they were a renter to see what other properties are being listed at.  But beware of this important caveat: sometimes properties with the “best” rental prices move very quickly, and may not be among those still listed at any given time.  Be careful not to peg your rent to properties that have been listed for a while, as these may simply be what’s left, not what’s appropriately priced.

Renters can also empower themselves with data on what similar units rent for.  Finding the right place at the right place requires some research, patience, action and luck.   Shop around, compare and contrast, and know what other properties are renting for before you consider signing a lease or negotiating with the property manager.

Below we’ve compiled average monthly rental data for 3 Bedroom Single Family Homes in 4 different cities from 3 different websites.  The data shows some variation both between websites and cities.

1) Will anyone in the house smoke, drink a lot, or do any drugs?

2) Do you have pets? Want pets? Okay with visiting pets?

3) Is anyone dating frequently – and how will the house decide what’s proper, when a steady partner starts paying for his/her share of the water bill, etc…?  Is it okay or not okay to let boyfriends/girlfriends hang around the place when the housemate they are with is not home?

4) What happens if someone doesn’t pay their share of the bills or rent on time?

5) Who is going to be on the lease, may I see it, and how much does each person pay?

6) Who is the landlord or property manager, and what should I expect of them and they of me?

7) Will we be sharing any food or other items – and if so what, and how do we spread the costs fairly?

What kind of a relationship do you want to have with housemates?  What have your past housemate relationships been like?  And how will we make house decisions?

Save yourself the drama!

9) Are there any days / times of the week that should be quiet times (no radio, tv, loud talking, etc…) – or any times that we’re cool with loud parties?

10) What are your biggest pet peevs (behavior you can’t stand), and what do you think are your most annoying habits?

Think you’ve got a more important question than the 10 above?  Send us your ideas!  And remember, do your due diligence – one hour of clear, open conversation can save one year of headaches, tension and misgivings!

Is your landlord dropping by un-announced?

The un-announced visitor. When your landlord just shows up unannounced on a Saturday morning when you’re trying to sleep, or as you and your housemates are sitting down for dinner, it just feels like an invasion of privacy.  Landlords who are renting homes they own personally, or their parent’s place, exhibit this behavior more often.  It’s why you should advocate for a 24 hour notice for any entry.  Landlord have the right to inspect their property, but not while you’re just getting out of the shower.

I thought the postal service delivered my mail... It can be a bit of a shock after you move in and find that your landlord delivers your mail to you.  This can be an issue when you’re renting a duplex, a guest house, a basement apartment… and sometimes is because the landlord hasn’t worked through the proper city process to get a designated address for your unit.  But there are solutions – a set of two mailboxes with your name specifically on one, for example.  Regardless, knowing that your landlord looks over all your mail – and that you may not be getting your Victoria’s Secret catalogue, can be annoying at best.

What is all that stuff in my closet? Even more so after the real estate crash, we’re hearing many stories of landlords who are renting out a home they used to live in, and continuing to use it as a storage shed.  Boxes of books in your closet, piles of furniture in the basement, even their old car parked in your driveway.  The key here is the lease: even if you don’t see a lot of crap lying around when you look at the place (and especially if you do), ask that the lease specify if and where the landlord can have property stored on premises – you’ll both feel better knowing that there is just one designated space, than living among someone else’s junk.

Got a story or a solution?  Share it with the HomeTownRent team!

The verdict is in: Renters start their searches online. rentBits found that 72% of  renters begin their rental searches online.

First stop? Search engines. A study conducted by Rent.com reports that 67% of renters use a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo) first to locate a home, while only 21% start by using a specific site.  To see where you should be advertising, make sure you use a search engine and keyword phrases that renters may use to determine which websites rank highest.

Searches are specific: The average renter uses a search query that is three to six words long, for example “Providence RI house for rent $500-800″, rather than just “rentals”.

Most important criteria? Price and location are the two key elements for every rental search.  The next most important factors that renters look for in an online ad are: pictures, lease terms, deposit amount, pet friendly, and washer and dryer included.

Renters make it clear that a response in 24 hours or less to an inquiry is critical.

Response time is critical. The majority of potential tenants expect to receive a response from the property manager in less than 24 hours.

A picture is worth.. 3 times the views! A Realtor.com study indicates that homes for sale which feature multiple photos are viewed 299% more than those with none or just one photo. Those same advertisements have 72% more click-throughs (leads).

House or Apartment? Additionally, houses are currently in much higher demand than apartments, with 83% percent of survey respondents preferring a house.  This may be partly due to the large number of recent home-owners put in foreclosure who are now renters, but seeking a similar housing environment.  This is a challenge to the apartment industry, especially since apartment completions in 2008 were the highest they have been since 2004.

Check out additional insights from rentBit’s survey results here.

HomeTownRent's first intern Claire Berg is now Account Associate for Online Sales and Operations at Google.

What were your main accomplishments as a HomeTownRent intern?

Claire: One of my main accomplishments at the beginning of the internship was starting the Duluth, Minnesota website. Andrew [Pearson, co-manager of HomeTownRent] gave me the chance to build traffic on that site, so it was like trial and error figuring out what works in sales. After I developed DuluthRent.com, I went into the Washington area, where I started three to four local websites, like SilverdaleRent.com and BremertonRent.com.

After working on the Washington websites, I moved on to the launch of the new Hawaii websites, which opened up a lot of new doors because we were marketing a completely new package of rental websites. Going from the United States to the Hawaiian Islands allowed me to do a lot of strategic thinking, and I love that I was given the ability to take on that challenge.

How do you think HomeTownRent’s emphasis on local advertising differentiates the company from its national competitors?

Claire: I think HomeTownRent’s local approach is brilliant because renters will often type in a query on Google and be brought to a national website like Rentals.com, which gets great traffic overall but only has a few relevant listings. As soon as someone clicks on a HomeTownRent website, they see a comprehensive list of rental properties that is laid out in a clean and user-friendly way. All local listings are right there in front of them and costs are low for property managers and landlords. HomeTownRent’s local approach enables the company to establish a personal connection with property managers and users appreciate that HomeTownRent knows their local area well.

What did you enjoy most about your experience working for HomeTownRent?

Claire: My favorite part of working for HomeTownRent was being able to have an impact on business development, because entrepreneurship is fascinating to me. There are so many things you can learn from directly building a business that you can’t learn from going to a class or working for a company that is already long-established. Working for a start-up involves many decisions, with different angles to look at — like how we can grow the business in the immediate versus the long-term future. Being able to have that big-picture thinking made me feel like a really valuable member of the team.

Would you recommend a job with HomeTownRent?

Claire: Yes, I would recommend a job with HomeTownRent, especially for self-starters and people that are self-driven. One of the best decisions I ever made was to intern with HomeTownRent, because it’s a start-up company and you can have an impact as if you’ve already been working for 5 to 6 years and have had industry experience. The skills that you learn working for HomeTownRent are transferable to any job you’ll look for in the future, and it’s a fantastic opportunity to differentiate yourself from the cookie-cutter, Fortune 500 company interns. You don’t feel as if working for HomeTownRent is a job, but it feels instead like a hobby or a project because you’re such a big part of the entrepreneurship experience.

How did your experience working for HomeTownRent prepare you for your job with Google?

Claire: Working for HomeTownRent prepared me for my job with Google because I learned how to communicate with a variety of different clients in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them. My jobs with HomeTownRent and Google are very closely related because they both involve working with big clients, small clients, entrepreneurs and big companies. All of these people have different needs, but there’s a way to tailor your business to fit those needs while still meshing with the brand you want them to know.

What are your main responsibilities as a Google employee?

Claire: I am currently part of the Google Start program, which is comprised of about 40 recent college graduates who will all go to work for different parts of the company after the 4-month program is over. In January, I will be an Account Associate for Online Sales and Operations with Google. This job involves working with clients to help them optimize their Google AdWords campaigns. I will also be part of a small team in “Torso Sales” to expand Google’s Canada market. My experience growing new markets at HomeTownRent will be especially helpful, and I’m really excited because it’s a completely new team.

How would you describe Google AdWords?

Claire: Google AdWords is a way for advertisers of all sizes — from someone selling a couch to the New York Times — to advertise their product or service on Google’s search page. Within your Google AdWords campaign, you can bid on as many or as few keywords as you want, so you’re given the liberty to make your campaign as specific as possible and tailored to the type of customers you’d like to attract. Google AdWords offers a cost per click option for its ads, which means that advertisers only pay a fee when someone clicks on their ad. Although cost per click is the main pricing method, there are other pricing options available like cost per impression if you’re trying to build brand awareness. Google AdWords is really focused on giving options to its users to meet different advertising needs.

What is the process for setting up a Google AdWords campaign?

Claire: To create a Google AdWords campaign, you first type in keywords that you think your prospective customers will be searching for. After a week or so, use Google Analytics to monitor your advertisement’s impressions (how many times the advertisement showed up on Google) and click-through rate (how many times people clicked on your site). These numbers help you determine whether or not a particular keyword is effective and if that keyword is effective, you can increase your bid to make your ad’s placement on Google higher. I highly recommend using Google Analytics to track your progress, because it’s unbeatable in finding ways to optimize your AdWords campaigns and improve them based on the data that Analytics returns.

Do you have any advice for property management or rental advertising websites that are new to using Google AdWords?

Claire: When you’re creating an AdWords campaign, think like you’re in the shoes of someone who’s trying to rent apartments or someone who’s trying to advertise properties. Think in terms of what the end users of your website are going to be looking for.

Why do you believe companies should advertise using Google AdWords?

Claire: Google AdWords is one of the safest bets for advertising your company because there are going to be results. Google does a great job in making sure the ads they display to their customers are most relevant to users’ searches, so I believe that Google AdWords has the highest cost-value for the money spent. AdWords is great because it increases the likelihood that the type of person you want brought to your ad will be.

According to a 2009 CMO Survey, 3.5% of marketing budgets is currently spent on social media marketing and that figure is predicted to grow to 6.1% within one year — and 13.7% within five years. The social networking phenomenon has caused many companies to devote a larger part of their marketing efforts to joining online communities in order to engage both current and potential customers. Three important aspects of successful social media marketing are:

1. Creating buzz or newsworthy events, videos, tweets, or blog entries that attract attention, and become viral in nature. Many successful viral campaigns have gathered steam through an amusing or compelling message, with the company logo or tagline included incidentally.
2. Building ways that enable fans of a brand or company to promote a message themselves in multiple online social media venues. Fan pages in Twitter, MySpace or Facebook follow this model.
3. Being based around online conversations. Social media marketing is not controlled by the organization. Instead it encourages user participation and dialogue. To be successful, social media marketing campaigns must fully engage and respect the users. (Wikipedia)

Developing Social Media Marketing for Your Company:

For your social media marketing to be effective, you must ask yourself: Who is my target audience? What kinds of social media do they use? How do they use social media? And what can I do to deliver a meaningful and compelling message that will enhance my success in the property management business? Because social media marketing allows you to deliver targeted messages to targeted audiences, you should develop a strategy for using social media that is unique to your company and its business objectives. HomeTownRent offers the following tips for property managers and rental advertising services to use social media to market your company, increase your rental leads, and improve your customers’ experience:

1. Don’t let Twitter’s 140-character limit keep you from delivering your message in its entirety. Include the most important part of the message in your tweet then post a link to your blog so visitors can read the full article.
2. Break up blocks of text on your blog by including photographs, diagrams and video clips whenever possible. Attract prospective tenants by posting pictures and video tours of the rentals you manage and assist current tenants by posting neighborhood maps and photos of recent community events.
3. Think of your social media marketing campaign as a 24/7 focus group. Post polls, quizzes and surveys on your social networking pages and ask your tenants for feedback and testimonials about your service. Learn from the responses you receive and use them as opportunities to improve your property management business.

Due to the rapid increase in popularity of blogging and social networking websites, it’s clear that social media marketing is a phenomenon that’s here to stay. So use this phenomenon to your advantage by joining online communities like Facebook and Twitter and by blogging about your experiences in the property management business!

• Mary Hecht-Kissell, founder and president of PR Strategies, a public relations firm in NC’s Research Triangle Park (RTP).

• Tyler Dukes, web producer for News 14 Carolina, a network of 24-hour local television news channels with stations across North Carolina.

• Allan Maurer, editor of TechJournal South, a technology business publication based in RTP.

• Frank Vinluan, tech/biotech writer for the Triangle Business Journal, an online business newspaper covering Raleigh and Durham, NC.

The beginning of the “Meet the Media” panel discussion focused on the ‘thinning’ of print newspapers due to low circulation and a decline in advertising revenue. When asked his prediction for the future of print newspapers, Tyler Dukes said “community journalism will play a bigger role” because he believes local newspapers will continue to thrive. Allan Maurer then addressed the future of digital advertising, predicting that online advertising will soon be improved with an emergence of video, social media and wireless mobility.

All members of the panel agreed that the shift from print to online advertising has changed the shape of the press release, as more businesses are now distributing news through digital media formats like web publications and social media networks. With regard to the social networking service, Twitter, Allan Maurer emphasized the importance of keeping brevity in your message, stating that “If you can pitch something to me in 140 characters, I think that’s great.”

When writing and releasing a press release of your own, Mary Hecht-Kissell recommends following these tips to PR success:

Pitching:

• Email is the best way to pitch reporters.

• Don’t pitch two reporters at the same publication with the same story and not tell them about it.

• Good pitches are newsworthy. Focus on what is new, what hasn’t been done before or what is being done in a better way.

Working with Media:

• Avoid industry jargon when telling your story.

• Provide information in a timely manner to meet a reporter’s deadline.

• Avoid confrontation; focus on facts – not emotions.

Leveraging Media Coverage

• Post media coverage on your web site to help visitors find it.

• Extend your media coverage by posting it on Twitter, Facebook Fan pages and LinkedIn.

• Highlight media coverage in customer newsletters.

For more information on events hosted by Business Wire, visit: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/business-wire-events/

In a challenging rental and real estate market, property managers and landlords can’t afford a poor showing.  These days, more and more property managers are “Staging” their rental units to help prospective renters get a feel for the property with furniture.

Traditionally, Staging has been limited to the real estate and vacation rental market.  But today, more landlords are dressing up an empty, vacant property with basic furnishings to help convey that homey feel to renters.  The results speak for themselves when the lease gets signed.

Staging a Rental: The Basics

• Freshly painted white walls.

• Neutral carpeting or well-cleaned hardwoods.

• Freshly mowed grass and trimmed hedges.

• Make sure the unit is well cleaned: floors, bathroom, windows, kitchen and appliances.

Advanced Staging:

• Have a set of furniture that you can rotate throughout vacant rentals as they become available.  Try to collect modern looking, newish and color-coordinated furniture for at least three main rooms: the master bedroom, living room and kitchen/dining room.

• Provide your tenants with a nice modern color palette.

• Always paint your walls with a neutral color paint. White walls can seem cold.

• Avoid flat paint. It is very hard to clean, looks dull, and over time will show more wear and tear on your walls.

• For smaller homes, create an inviting outdoor living space with a small table and a few chairs.

How Much Will It Cost?

There may be a local home stager who can lease furniture and accessories for your home showings. Consultations may cost $100-300, while a full-treatment may run up to $3000.  If hiring a home stager is not in your budget, educate yourself. Do a Google search for “Home Staging” and you’ll see some great examples and testimonials supporting this strategy.  Staging your rental could help you change the vacancy period from months to weeks to even days!

If you manage multiple properties, it may be worth putting a month’s rent into some furniture you keep in storage for when a property needs staging.  If you only manage a few properties, you could obtain inexpensive furniture from scratch and dent sales, storage rental auctions and Craigslist. You could even put a few of your own pieces in the property.

Remember, renters are looking for a home to live in, not an empty box.  The more you can convey a sense of home and show just how nice the unit looks furnished, the faster you may be able to rent your property.

Alaska's Portage Glacier in 1914 and 2004

Arizona's Colorado River in 2002 and 2003

When the slideshow came to an end, it was clear that a somber mood had swept over the crowd. But spirits were quickly lifted when Shekou presented numerous case studies proving we can—and have—made significant progress in our battle against global warming and environmental pollution. One of Shekou’s case studies focused on ozone depletion, a problem that became public in 1980 with an increasing fear of skin cancer. In 1987, 43 nations signed the Montreal Protocol designed to protect the ozone layer by decreasing the production of ozone-depleting substances. Since the Montreal Protocol came into effect, ozone-depleting substances have been greatly reduced and ozone layers are expected to reach pre-1980 levels by the year 2050.

In addition to supporting the principles outlined in the Montreal Protocol and other international and national ‘green’ initiatives, there are many things YOU can do to protect our planet and as a bonus, you’ll save yourself and your tenant time and money in the process.

Going Green: Your Property Management Office:

• Ditch the CD software and office servers
  • Instead, use web-based software
• Go Paperless
  • Offer online payments and accept bills electronically
• Power down computers, office equipment and lights at closing time
  • If everyone turned off their computers at night, ONE TON of CO2 emissions would be saved every year!
• Purchase recycled paper
  • 1 lb. of recycled paper = 4 lbs of CO2 eliminated!

Going Green: Your Rental Properties

• Install Low-Flow Shower Heads
  • Save $150 per year and prevent 350 lbs. of CO2 emission
• Install Compact Florescent Bulbs (CFLs)
  • Save $30 per bulb over a lifetime and use 2/3 less energy
• Install a Programmable Thermostat
  • Save an average of $180 per year on energy bills
• Clean Air Filters Regularly
  • Reduce energy consumption by 15%
• Install Motion Sensors for Lights
  • Save 20% on energy bills
• Use Paints with No Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
  • Reduce risk of respiratory illness and ensure safer air quality
• Provide tenants with recycling bins

To learn more about how you can ‘Save the Planet One Tenant at a Time,’ visit www.greenpropertymanager.org.