How to keep rental property fully rented

1. Market research – this include having a rental property in highly sought after location such as college town, cool young hip place with a lot of local shop and restaurant, excellent school system (if this is a single house family), military base, section-8, etc. whatever the area is calling for, then that’s where you should buy it.
2. Time of listing – if you live in a cold area, and college town, then the end of June, end of July is the popular time where landlords and tenants are exchanging property. That’s a sweet period. Military base, it could be random, but most people don’t move in the middle of the winter.
3. Odd season – say you did actually buy a place in the winter, the students are all paired up, how do you get people to move in? The answer is changing in marketing.
a. You’ll list it as “roommate needed” it requires more work for you to background check, but you’ll have more chance of getting part of the apartment rented, than none.
b. You’ll list it as short term rental, that way when the hot period open up, you can get a group move in to get the apartment fully rented.
4. Amenities – most tenants don’t like to go somewhere else to do laundry, so if you have to, get a stack unit built-in to the kitchen or a closet. Make it a perk to rent your place. Most tenants won’t care if you have,hardwood floor or linoleum floor, they’ll ruin both for you, but they’ll care about plumbing works, light works, air conditioning works. As long as you keep it minimal, the things homeowner would care about are totally different from renter perspective unless you ran a high end rental, or the space is very tiny and it doesn’t cost much to upgrade.
5. Location to public transportation – having a car is not cheap, whether they are students, professionals or section-8, having access to subway or bus-line, it’s a plus, on top of walk to everywhere – restaurant, shops, museums are all perks that you can sell.