Craigslist.Org: The #1 Choice For Free Apartment Advertising
Non-commercial in nature, Craigslist.org provides a cornucopia of community goods, services, classified ads and social life ideas. With a free registered account, multifamily leasing managers can write a variety of free housing ads that entice potential renters with attention-getting descriptions of apartment communities and eye-catching lifestyle photos.
Have you ever looked at the free apartment advertising posts on the rental housing section of Craigslist?
There are plenty of housing for rent flyers for your comps and rental competitive pool, so be sure to create visual interest and make the potential renter want to click through on your apartment marketing ad. Here’s where you will need to trigger someone-might-snag-this-great-apartment-before-I-do anxiety with a unique rental slogan with personality, professional graphic design, high quality housing content and multifamily community pictures that entice.
Find Out How to Make Free Ads Worth Your Time
10 Essential Craigslist Triggers To Maximize Free Apartment Advertising
To get more hits on your rental housing marketing, consider these 10 Essential Craigslist Triggers when creating your advertising.
There are many tenant studies and renter research that give you clues to the most important apartment features across all family, income, and age groups. Lead with these issues and let your multifamily rental flyer show how your apartment community answers the need.
- Location is the most critical issue for renters followed by a desirable apartment floor plan
- The most sought-after apartment amenity is washer/dryer in the unit
- The important factor to renting from an institutional management company is the professional appearance and attitude of the housing team, as well as a leasing discount or concession promotion
- Many renters use keywords in the search function to find rental housing locations near specific employers, hospitals, colleges, school district, student housing and military bases
- Popular apartment marketing rental keywords are names of neighborhoods, cross streets, landmarks, parks, and major transportation arteries and commuting corridors
- The size of the multi housing rooms does matter so talk about apartment square footage, large living-space rooms, good closets and plenty of storage
- Craigslist has been the go-to housing platform for 25+ years and rental shoppers expect market-rate price, rent promotions, leasing specials and sales
- Attract your ideal style demographic: renovated units, classic style, vintage decor, territorial views, garden-style apartments, luxury housing, budget affordable housing, urban multi housing centers
- Highlight one apartment unit’s claim to fame: sq. ft. floor plan, corner location, hardwood floors, quiet property, in-unit laundry
- What’s cool about your apartment community: pet rental policies, new smart home technology, renter parking, all-inclusive utilities, pool, resident fitness programs, property courtesy patrol
5 Renter’s Questions Your Free Apartment Ad Should Answer
As multifamily leasing managers you live, eat and breathe your apartment community marketing information every day.
What seems like a no brainer to you can be a legitimate question for potential rental prospects. Remember these folks aren’t familiar with your multifamily property or your leasing policies but they are interested in these renter topics:
- Can I afford the monthly housing rent?
- Can I park my cars near my apartment home?
- What are the apartment lease terms?
- Will you love my pets with fair rental policies?
- Are you scamming me?
Not all rental housing landlords are as diligent and professional as you and Craigslist.org has earned a reputation for shady deals.
Sadly it’s a fact that rental prospects need assurance of your ethical property management practices before they’re likely to respond to your free apartment advertising. Use of your property management company logo, the Equal Opportunity Housing (EOH) insignia and the American’s with Disabilities Act logo are symbols renters look for when reviewing multifamily housing marketing.
Craigslist Is Free Until Your Ad Is Flagged
The Craigslist community of users drives its housing ad policies, and anyone can flag ads for removal if they deem them inappropriate or over-posted, so be sure to follow the guidelines and don’t abuse.
Just because you want to post multifamily housing ad 50 times in one day doesn’t mean you should since over posting lands you with the bad reputation of being a landlord spammer. But what you can do is take some time to create three or so different rental headlines for your free apartment ads that get your multifamily marketing message across, and then test those ads against each other during different time periods to see which flyers are popular with renters.
When creating effective apartment ads, try to get inside the head of a Craigslist consumer. Be sure to change up your rental housing ads since using similar wording can lead to them never appearing in the photo gallery (this is called ghosting) or getting your email addresses banned from posting privileges.
The best advice you can get is to stop reading this apartment marketing article right now and start reading the Craigslist Terms Of Use so your best apartment advertising flyer plays by the rules.