The drought is over

As mentioned in my previous post, after a really long drought I was able to rent one of my apartments that had been vacant for 7 months. It would be great to think that previous rents would have been able to sustain the apartment during that time, but that kind of reality only happens during the real estate informercials. No, I've been putting out about $1k of my own money every month to cover costs. PLUS, in that time I've had to pay for advertising, which is far worse than you can imagine. The local paper charges about $135 for a two week stint for a little dinky ad. The only upside is that if you renew then it's half the price, but then if you renew after that it goes back up again.

So why did it take so long? Looking back, I think there were some lessons to take away:
1) Nobody wants to move around the Christmas holiday. The number of calls from around mid-Nov to mid-Jan was pretty much nil. Calls a month to either side of that were pretty slim. For the most part, most families will want to move in prior to school starting, so if you haven't rented by end of Aug you are probably in for a wait unless you hit people with special circumstances. I'm even thinking of structuring leases with an end date no later than July going forward.
2) Not sure of the scientific validity of this, but what I have found is that most people look for apartments either the last week of the month or the first week of the month. So if you don't advertise during this time you will probably miss out. Or if you advertise during the off weeks you will probably waste your money.
3) The neighbors buildings have a big impact on perception. The guy who owns the building next door is one of those guys who jumped on the "no money down" bandwagons and now is in deep doo-doo. The place was never very nice in the first place but he wound up having sewer trouble and his front wall had to be ripped up, and he never bothered to do much to fix it. So it really looks like crap. Most people won't say it directly, but judging from the looks on their faces as they come up to the house they are seeing that as a reflection on my house.
4) Likewise, the front entranceway is their first impression on your house. So even though they are not going to be spending much time there it could affect things. While painting/fixing things up I saved the front hallway for last, and looking back it didn't look that nice. Maybe this had an impact.
5) Never believe anything until a hefty deposit is in hand. Several months back I had a woman who was very interested and said she wanted to move forward. I thought it looked good so I didn't re-run the ad (and missed the sweet spot mentioned above). It turns out that this woman's current landlord wouldn't let her out of her current lease. Make a long story short, this never went anywhere.
6) I should have dropped the asking rent earlier. Yes, maybe I was a little stubborn.

And some puzzles:
1) Should I have used a realtor? Would it have made any difference? The argument is that even though they charge a hefty fee (one months rent) it could be made up for less vacancy time. But I'm not convinced that it would have made a difference, and in the end it might have taken just as long.

And a rant:
Why is it that people don't show up for appointments? I kid you not that probably 40% of people who set up appointments are no-shows. In the worst example, I had a guy call me up one night and ask to see the apartment the next morning. I show up, and no guy. I call him and he says, "oh yeah, I forgot". Don't bother coming.

But the story has a decent ending. One day I'm over at the apartment waiting for an appointment (who was another no-show) and I get a call from someone who is going to be in the area and wants to see it. They come in, and are immediately in love with the place. I've had this before, and then never hear from the people, so I'm not too excited. After a quick chat they tell me they want the place. They also want to move in as soon as possible, since their other lease is already expired and the landlord is just letting them find a new place. I tell them that I will need references and such, and the lady pulls out a small pile of documentation. Letters of reference, paychecks, etc etc. She's about the best prepared tenant I have ever seen. I look through this stuff and call her current landlord on the spot. Checks out. I ask when would they like to come back and do paperwork. She says can you write up the lease now. I say ok, but I'm going to need the security deposit when you sign the lease. She says ok, plus she will give first month's rent. Cash. Now. Ok then. Icing on the cake - they want a two year lease (which is fine with me because I'd rather have that stability than the option of raising the rent).

So this is one battle won in a long list of them. Next time I'll write about the roof leak from hell.