How To Slash Void Periods In Your Real Estate Agent Rental Business

Cutting void periods in your real estate agent rental business is essential to maintaining margins and generating returns. Unfortunately, these periods of no occupancy are inevitable. So what can you do to shorten them to ensure your business continues to thrive? Let’s take a look. 

Target A Specific Demographic

One option is to target a specific demographic if you know that the types of properties you rent out are popular among a particular group. You often see this with students or retirement homes, but advertising to young professionals or families is also a common tactic. 

Simply saying that your property is suitable for these groups can encourage them to choose your rentals over the competition. Furthermore, you may find that you can charge more for a given property size if you adapt it slightly to the needs of the occupants.

Maintain Good Relationships

Another old-fashioned way to slash the length of void periods is to maintain positive relationships with your tenants. Looking after them and showing that you care can encourage them to stay with you instead of trying their luck with another landlord. 

What’s more, it doesn’t take much. Just calling the handyman when something breaks and ringing them up now and then to ask them how they are getting on can help tremendously. You don’t need to be intrusive. 

Set A Competitive Rent

Another option is to set a competitive rent. Keeping your prices roughly where people want them will help you reduce void periods significantly. There will be high demand for your apartments or units, so the moment they go onto the market, someone will snap them up. 

Getting ultra-competitive, though, can slash your margins, so you’ll want to be careful. Try to avoid relying on rent increases in the future to cover your costs. These can take a long time to materialize and annoy tenants who can’t afford them. 

Professionals Stage Your Lets

You can also try professionally staging your lets to make them more attractive when people search for them online. Using software for real estate agents to virtually stage them gives people confidence and makes your properties look better than the competition using conventional cameras. It’s also significantly cheaper and doesn’t require you to have them in a finished state immediately. 

Offer Incentives

You could also try to reduce void periods by appealing to the short-term rental market. Instead of insisting that all properties in a building must be rented out long-term at all times, you could leave a couple for short-term occupancy on rotation (depending on who vacates), letting you collect revenue while you search for longer-term tenants. This approach gives you flexibility and also prevents tenants from having to commit long-term. 

Cast A Wider Net

Finally, you might want to list your properties on multiple platforms and social media outlets. Don’t assume that all your prospective tenants will use the same services to find the properties they want. Most will simply look on social media or not even realize there are options for them in their area.