5 Tips to Create a Captivating Rental Listing

Article by Sinead Clarke Marketing Specialist 13 August 2021

It’s no secret that the rental market is a constantly evolving arena, with high competition for both prospective tenants and Property Managers. Therefore, it’s imperative to stand out from the thousands of listings online. This may all sound like a giant headache, with the most minute details making an impact on how your property is perceived. However, we’re here to take the guesswork away, and give you our top five tips to create a captivating listing.

1. Take the time to understand and accurately capture the target market for your property. 

Identifying your target market is the first step to ensuring you create a captivating listing.  By taking the time to properly acknowledge the correct prospective tenants for your property, you can create a tailored and focused listing. For example, you wouldn’t list a six bedroom estate in the country, to singles who enjoy living in a metropolitan area. You can identify and understand your target market by using the suburb profile functions on both Realestate.com and Domain. The suburb profiles also allow you to take a deep dive into the lifestyles that your prospective tenants lead.

From there, you can use targeted language in the listing copy to entice the ideal tenant. Some of these words include:

• Spacious 
• Alluring 
• Refreshing 
• Updated 
• Private
• Retreat
• Minimalist

Source: Realestate.com

2. Invest in photography to ensure your property stands out.

Imagery makes all the difference when it comes to drawing the attention of prospective tenants. Similarly to humans, properties benefit from good lighting and flattering angles. If you can make the investment, we recommend you get your hands on a drone or camera stabilizer, and sharpen up your photography skills with a photography or drone course. This will improve your listing, whilst also cutting out the middleman. If learning how to make a camera fly isn’t your speed, don’t worry there are many other programs, such as BoxBrownie.com that can help elevate your photography. These programs use filters and editing to enhance the quality of your images. From intensifying the colours in a sunset to warming up the interior of a home, there is nothing editing can’t do to make a house look more inviting.

3. Reach more people with social media.

Social media is a powerful tool. When used correctly it can create heightened interest for your listing. It can seem overwhelming at times, however targeting measures are foolproof and accurate to ensure that your chosen target market is reached. With new platforms and trends popping up every day, social media can seem extremely overwhelming for a busy Property Manager. With so many different platforms and types of content, it can be hard to know where to start. Don’t stress! We’ve got some great tips to help you get started and stay on track. Firstly, by identifying and focusing on your target audience, you’ll be able to figure out exactly where and what to post. For example, launching your listing on Facebook would be wise if you’re looking to attract families, whereas Instagram would be preferable if you’re attracting young professionals. Within the Facebook Business Suite you can narrow these target markets down even further, to include their interests and location. 

When using social media, there are two key things to be mindful of:

1. Use summarised descriptions and buzz words when advertising your listing, to complement the imagery and draw attention. Audience retention on social media is short, therefore the punchier your listing is the more likely it will be well received. 
2. Stay consistent with your social media presence. It’s important to continuously create an engaging profile in order to gain more traction, this includes posting listings in conjunction with more engaging and authentic content. The more consistent you are with posting, the more inclined you are to gain followers and exposure to your listings.

4. Use PropertyMe’s Listing feature to take the stress away. 

PropertyMe’s Listing feature allows you to post listings to multiple domains from a single dashboard, helping you save time and energy. The feature allows you to do all the behind-the-scenes work for your listing at the push of a button, so you can put the focus on the small details to really go the extra mile. Within the feature, you can create new listings, update their status as well as print and schedule open inspections. This reduces the margin for human error, and simplifies the listing process.

5. Create a story with your listing.

It’s no secret that humans run on emotion, in particular sentimental emotion. With over 95% of our purchases being made in our subconscious mind. Therefore, it’s imperative to make sure that your prospective clients connect with your listing and home itself. This can be done by selling a lifestyle that the target market hopes to attain in their new home.

In order to sell a story, you can:

1. Stage the home. Stastia conducted a survey on homeowners, finding that 82% of respondents found it easier to visualise themselves in a staged home. Therefore it’s worthwhile taking the extra time and money to ensure the house looks inviting. Agents have been using the ‘freshly baked cookies’ secret for years, however you can go the extra mile by using mirrors to reflect light and make the room look more spacious, as well as including decorative items that are relevant to the target market. 
2. Use a virtual reality walkthrough or video feature to bring the home to life. By doing this you are putting the viewer in the shoes of the person living there, by simulating them walking around. There is no need for flashy, Oscar winning videos, a simple video tour whereby you explain the best features of the house works wonders.

Thanks for reading this blog all about creating a captivating rental listing! You might also be interested in:

• Is contactless rental the future of property management?
• Best real estate video apps 2021
• How to grow your property management business using Facebook

Let us know your thoughts on our tips to creating a captivating rental listing by emailing [email protected].