Marketing your rental property is the first and most crucial step in attracting long-term tenants that can fill your vacancies quickly. As the digitalization of the industry continues, more and more rental listing sites seem to populate the leasing arena. Specifically Facebook Marketplace, which has recently been talk of the town.
Facebook Marketplace rentals arrival marks the end of big property management companies' domination over the free and paid rental listing sites. Facebook Marketplace rentals allows residential landlords and property managers to market their rental properties with the most traffic intensive user base in the world, for free.
With Zillow moving to a paid model and Zumper following in its footsteps, is Facebook Marketplace the next savior for time-crunched property managers?
Importance of Facebook Marketplace
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In 2017, Facebook announced that it was expanding its Marketplace listings section to include Facebook Marketplace rentals. While even before this expansion users could post their own apartment rental listings in marketplace, however it wasn't an exclusive section.
The real game changer was when Facebook announced its partnership with listing sites like Zumper, Apartments.com to automate Facebook marketplace rental advertisements.
Facebook Marketplace rentals might be the one-stop solution for property managers looking to market their properties to a larger more relevant online audience. For property managers and landlords looking to post rental ads online, Facebook Marketplace rentals allows them to list apartments and homes without any charges or commission.
Facebook is the largest social media network globally with about 3 billion users and a lot of those users rent from Facebook Marketplace. The most obvious benefit is that it allows your company to sell and post apartment rental ads on one of the world’s biggest social media networks, guaranteeing exposure and leads.
Another advantage of Facebook Marketplace rentals is its Messenger chatbot. All queries and purchases happen through Facebook Messenger, ensuring companies to connect one-on-one with buyers and renters.
Why list rentals on Facebook Marketplace?
Facebook Marketplace rentals is a great platform where you can utilize the power of a huge and, most importantly, relevant audience. Many online websites can guarantee exposure but not the right audience. Of course, the traffic a rental listing site attracts is important but relevancy matters the most when it comes to conversions.
Facebook does not simply advertise to a user’s Facebook News Feed, marketplace instead influences buyers to make a purchase directly, which means there is less resistance to your sales messaging.
Facebook Marketplace utilizes Interest-based targeting, showing your Facebook marketplace rental advertisements to tenants who have been searching for apartments and with an easy to navigate interface.
As a property manager, you want to post rental ads where people will see them and where people are, and a big chunk of future tenants are currently browsing on Facebook. Property managers and landlords have seen an abrupt increase in the number of leads generated from Facebook just because of its huge user base.
Facebook Marketplace rentals could be compared to Craigslist and generally, every property manager’s goal should be to market their listing to as many places as possible. And while Craigslist is still relevant and important Facebook has gained a lot of traction because consumers have become more comfortable with making purchases online. People spend a lot of time on Facebook and a large part of its appeal is its social aspect which makes sharing rental listings easy.
How to automate Facebook Marketplace rentals listing?
The process of advertising your rentals on Marketplace can be made even more convenient with automation tools and software that integrate with Facebook and automatically lists all your rental properties on Facebook Marketplace. Manually adding properties can be an absolute nightmare. Now more so ever, as Zillow and Zumper are monetizing their platforms
The advantage of such automation tools is that they integrate directly with Facebook Marketplace to automate the entire process for property managers, posting Facebook marketplace rental ads for a large and relevant target audience.
While users could always post their own apartment listings to Facebook marketplace when Facebook integrated with websites like RentSync and Zumper they were able to pull in more listings. It made it easier for you as a user to have multiple Facebook marketplace rentals posted automatically through these external websites.
Automation makes it easy, convenient, and fast but with Zumper and RentSync’s integration with Facebook ending soon there need to be alternative options. There is no need to ask the leasing agent to post Facebook Marketplace rental advertisements from their personal account, respond to messages 24/7, and enter all the lead data manually when you can automate it. With LetHub you can automate the entire process and have qualified leads from Facebook Marketplace roll directly into your CRM.
Step-by-step guide on how to market your commercial rental properties on Facebook Marketplace
Step 1:
Log in to your Facebook account and if you don't have one create one, its free.
Step 2:
Go to the Marketplace by clicking on "Marketplace" in the menu or just by searching "marketplace" in the search bar. Click "Sell Something."
Step 3:
Then click "Homes for Sale or Rent.”
Step 4:
Enter the property details and information. A good description of the rental property is key. Cross promoting your rental listings on social media will not achieve much if the listing itself is not created well.
Step 5:
Include all of this in your Facebook Marketplace rental ad:
- Photos of the property
- whether the home is for sale or for rent
- property type (single-family home, condo, etc.)
- number of bedrooms and bathrooms
- property address (which can be set to public or private)
- rental rate
- a great property description
- square footage
- lease length
- date available
- along with any additional features, such as pet-friendliness, laundry, parking, and heating or cooling features.
Step 6:
The last thing to do before you post your Facebook Marketplace rental ad is to choose whether you want the listing to be shown only on the Marketplace or on your "newsfeed" as well. Marketplace will make the listing public and it will reach everyone within a certain mile radius of the property and is searchable within the Marketplace itself. Whereas your newsfeed is only available to those you allow to see your newsfeed.
In conclusion if you want to fill your vacancies you have to advertise it to a large online audience and Facebook Marketplace rentals is the place to post your rental ads if you want the greatest number of qualified leads.
How to Increase Renter Leads on Facebook Marketplace?
There are a few ways in which you can edit your Facebook Marketplace rental listing to attract more sellers. It is always best to test out each method and see what works for you.
- Write a more detailed description about the rental listing, the more information there is the more likely you are to attract leads.
- Optimize your listing by including more keywords in the title and description.
- Take professional pictures of your rental listing, bad pictures of an apartment or a house instantly turn away potential tenants.
Facebook Marketplace Rules for Rental Listings
There are some general rules that you should be aware of before creating a rental listing ad on Facebook. If all of Facebook's commerce policies are not followed your listing may never get approved.
- Make sure the description and photo match! The photos of the item must match the description and title of the listing otherwise it goes against Facebook Marketplace's guidelines.
- Listings must comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination. This includes but is not limited to discrimination for housing listings.
- Facebook Marketplace guidelines state there be no listings that promote the buying or selling of recalled products. In the case of rental properties before posting a rental property for listing verify that everything is legal. Check with the department in your county that handles home inspections to see if it's registered.
Facebook Marketplace rules for posting rentals are straightforward and easy to follow but they are important if you want to list your properties on Marketplace!
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