7 Reasons Why a Rental Open House is a Waste of Time

Rental property showings are the first time you meet prospective tenants. The showing is also typically the only time a prospective tenant sees your property before deciding if he or she is interested. This means the showing is your only opportunity to maximize tenant interest and select the best tenants.

Landlords commonly believe open houses will save them time. But in reality, open houses waste your time by hurting your rental process. The disadvantages we’ll go over below reveal that open houses decrease tenant interest and weaken tenant screening, which costs you more time in the long run.

Here are 7 reasons why your open house is a waste of time:

Automatic Disqualification of Good Tenants

When you schedule an open house, you decide a window of time when tenants can show up with no exceptions. When you do that, you risk disqualifying great tenants who can’t make the time slot. What’s worse, if you announce the open house time in your rental listing, some tenants may not even reach out to you.

Automatically disqualifying great tenants means you’re willing to risk never meeting the perfect tenant who will pay rent on time and care for your property.

It’s much better to work with each tenant and find a time that works. That way, you meet tenants who are interested in your property and not just tenants who can make the open house time.

No Personalized Attention or Walk-Through

Having too many people in the space means you can’t give each tenant personalized attention. Tenants want to meet you and ask questions.

Even worse, you can’t give each tenant a walk-through. A walk-through is when you take a tenant around the property, highlighting perks as you go. You might show off extra storage space or a gorgeous view. Walk-throughs are effective at getting tenants interested in the space.

But with multiple tenants, you won’t be able to guide people through the property. This is a missed opportunity for you to peak tenant interest.

The lack of personalized attention also means that people will be left unattended on your property, which increases the chance of theft.

Tenants Can’t Visualize Living There

Everyone knows that letting tenants visualize themselves living there is the best way to make the “sale.” But open houses are too crowded to let tenants envision the space as their own. Tenants want to plan, “This is where I could put my couch and TV,” but that’s impossible with five people in the way.

Plus, a space full of strangers does not feel like home. Add to that, your space looks smaller with people in it, and you’ll have a harder time renting your unit.

Tenants Don’t Like Competition

Contrary to popular belief, prospective tenants DON’T like competition. Competition is discouraging to tenants because it signals a lower chance of getting the unit. A tenant won’t go through with applying if there’s too much competition, especially if they’re not that interested to begin (because the space is too crowded and they haven’t received one-on-one attention).

Even if a tenant loved your unit, he or she will feel there’s no point in moving forward in the process if it’s a total waste of time and money to apply. A tenant won’t be inclined to pay $45 and spend time on a rental application. Although, if a tenant applies through Rentalutions and doesn’t get your property, you can tell him or her to share his or her rental application with other landlords. Rentalutions’ tenants can share their application multiple times, only paying $45 dollars once.

Competition means certain tenants will monopolize your time forcing you to ignore other tenants. Time-monopolizers tend to be tenants with negative characteristics that you don’t want as a landlord. They’re more likely to be needy, not have boundaries, have a sense of entitlement, and have an excessive amount of requests.

Tenants you might be ignoring will be the low-key, polite tenants. These quality tenants want a landlord that will go above and beyond to meet them individually. With competition, high quality tenants are more likely to walk away before ever applying.

More Annoying for Current Tenants

Open houses require that current tenants are not home for a long stretch of time, which is more bothersome than asking for a few 15-minute instances. Current tenants are more likely to approve a small favor, like a 15-minute window of time, than a large favor. This is known as the foot-in-the-door approach.

The best way to go about property showings with current tenants is to ask them when they are typically not home. Then, schedule your showings in 15-minute pockets of time when you know they will not be there.

And remember, always notify your tenants when you will be showing the unit. That way, you’re providing adequate notice of entry and asking for the space to be clean.

For more helpful tips, read about the ins and outs of hosting a great rental property showing.

Open Houses Weaken Tenant Screening

The key to tenant screening at a property showing is to notice red flags. Some red flags are subtle and can be hard to pick up in a crowded room:

• Disheveled appearance
• Not taking care of his or her belongings
• Showing up unprepared
• Bad manners
• Signs of lying

With multiple people in the property, you won’t notice these red flags. Plus, some of these red flags, like bad manners, require that you meet the tenant before you notice them, and you may not have time to meet everyone at an open house.

What’s more, open houses eliminate certain criteria that you can use to screen tenants. For instance, it eliminates the “early bird gets the worm” mentality, meaning the most responsible tenants will be the ones that schedule a showing first and show up on time.

Compared to open houses, individual property showings actually provide a clear hierarchy of who is most interested and who reaches out first. This hierarchy is incredibly useful for selecting quality tenants. Open houses don’t allow responsible tenants to step forward and show their interest.

Tough Deliberation Time

At an open house, you’ll have many names and faces to remember. Several hours later, when it’s time to think about who you met, you likely won’t be able to place a face to a name. This will be even harder three to four days later when you receive a tenant’s rental application and credit check. Basically, you are throwing away the advantage of actually meeting tenants.

As mentioned above, red flags are important deciding factors and they can be difficult to remember days later. Failing to remember who raised a red flag eliminates the advantage of a property showing as a screening technique.

Is it worth the risk of possibly renting to a bad tenant who doesn’t pay rent or damages your property?

Conclusion

We strongly believe individual property showings are the best way to meet tenants and show your space. Individualized attention, walk-throughs, and the opportunity to get to know each prospect are all benefits of individual showings that help you rent your unit to high quality tenants.

Not sure what to do next in the rental process? Learn more about tenant screening, including how to analyze a tenant’s credit check and tenant background check.

Sign up to reap all the benefits of finding and screening first-class tenants.

And let us know in the comments below: would you rather have an open house or an individual property showing?

Originally published at Rentalutions.