Author Topic: zillow web traffic for rentals  (Read 1813 times)

clarkfan1979

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zillow web traffic for rentals
« on: March 13, 2021, 08:21:30 PM »
Zillow charges 9.99/week to list your rental. I had a rental listed for 30 days. I got 250 views on day 1 and averaged about 100 views/day for the next 29 days. I ended up with 3,150 views over 30 days.

Anyone else look at your zillow data?

uniwelder

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2021, 03:58:02 PM »
This is kinda posting to follow...

I have two rentals I'll be advertising within the next two weeks.  They're in a college town, so I will probably get a lease signed relatively fast.  Last time they were advertised, two years ago, Zillow was free.  The $10/week charge is new to me, but its pretty small, so not a big deal.  I'll update with statistics as soon as everything goes through to add something of substance to this discussion.

Clarkfan--- your place is still available 30 days being advertised?

SndcxxJ

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2021, 09:32:29 PM »
I don't track page views (I actually don't even see those for rentals only for sale ads), but I keep a close eye on how many people contact and on which days in the rental ad cycle they come in on.
I also advertise on craigslist and apartments.com, as well as a sign in front of the property, but 95% of my leads come from the zillow network.  I think of listing and showing units like making pancakes, I always throw out the first one.  Inevitably, the best leads are people who aren't in a rush, don't need to be the first one in the door because they are well qualified and don't need to scratch and claw to get a place and those people aren't checking zillow everyday.  I typically start running ads about a week before I am ready to start showing the place.  Interested folks contact me and I let them know we are still working on the place and we will be ready to show it starting on X date.  Typically the first few days I'll get tons of contacts, then it tapers down to a handful a day.  That's if I've priced it right.  A little too high and the contact volume and quality falls off a cliff, a little too low and I get inundated with interested parties.
The best candidates I find aren't necessarily part of the initial rush, but come as a slow and steady drip that needs to be sorted out from everyone else.
Where do you see page views?
I also find that zillow "contacts" number can be way way off sometimes.  Sometimes it will say zero or some low number but I'll have 40 different families contacted me through the app.

clarkfan1979

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2021, 01:24:55 PM »
This is kinda posting to follow...

I have two rentals I'll be advertising within the next two weeks.  They're in a college town, so I will probably get a lease signed relatively fast.  Last time they were advertised, two years ago, Zillow was free.  The $10/week charge is new to me, but its pretty small, so not a big deal.  I'll update with statistics as soon as everything goes through to add something of substance to this discussion.

Clarkfan--- your place is still available 30 days being advertised?


One of my tenants is buying a house. He was scheduled to close on March 16th. He gave me his 28-day to vacate on February 17th, to be executed on March 17th. I told him that it wasn't a good idea to only give himself one day to move. I also told him it's possible for the closing to get delayed. He would then up homeless living in a hotel, waiting to close. He gave it some thought, but insisted on a move-out of March 17th because he didn't want to pay rent after closing on his house.

On February 21st, the appraisal came back 100K less than what he offered. He is now ordering a 2nd appraisal and will probably close around April 15th to May 1st. I asked him what his plan was now that he was going to be homeless for about 6 weeks before closing on his new house. He has a wife and an 18-month old. All of a sudden a light bulb went off in his head and he realized that he had screwed himself.

I gave him the opportunity to rescind his 28-day to vacate under one condition. You wait until you close on your house and then the next day you provide your 28-day to vacate. He gladly accepted.

During the 30 days, I think I got about 70 inquiries of people that wanted to schedule a showing. I had 3 offers from people that wanted to rent it "site unseen" and sign a lease.

Papa bear

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2021, 06:48:24 PM »
I get similar results from Facebook ads on marketplace and in specific groups, like “local college roommates and apartments” or “local city rentals” as I do with Zillow.  Craigslist is basically dead for me at this point, unfortunately.   

I haven’t had to pay yet, usually just need to post 1 ad for the 2 unit.  Other places have been incredible easy to rent with word of mouth and Facebook posts.


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srad

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2021, 12:53:22 PM »
  Craigslist is basically dead for me at this point, unfortunately.   

What happened with CL for you?  Between a sign in the yard, CL and word of mouth, I've never had to consider paying for advertising.  I mean you get what you pay for, CL does get some "interesting" people responding, but I'm going to guess so does zillow and FB.

Papa bear

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2021, 01:11:35 PM »
I’d say the last 2 years, Craigslist has yielded 0 interested tenants, let alone a qualified one. It’s all been Facebook and Zillow. 

The tenants I’m going for, namely college age (large state university area)  and young professionals (trendy, young, mixed use neighborhoods with lots of restaurants/bars), may be backing off from Craigslist for searching for rentals. 


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srad

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2021, 01:22:29 PM »
That's good to know, majority of my units are in a college town as well.  If i start to see the responses dwindling on CL, I'll  have an idea why...

Dicey

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2021, 12:14:34 PM »
Meh, $40 bucks a month seems cheap, plus it's a deductible expense.

And @clarkfan1979, you're a mensch.

Dicey

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2021, 12:16:09 PM »
Question: Is the listing exclusive to Zillow or are they putting it on MLS? You could be getting more eyeballs that what you're seeing in the Zillow count.

clarkfan1979

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #10 on: March 22, 2021, 01:34:33 PM »
Question: Is the listing exclusive to Zillow or are they putting it on MLS? You could be getting more eyeballs that what you're seeing in the Zillow count.

I think zillow is connected to hotpads and trulia. I think the metrics are a combination of views from all 3 websites (zillow, hotpads and trulia). I would normally spend $20 for it being listed for 2 weeks.

Facebook marketplace is not a good place for my Hawaii rental. People post hate messages about rent being un-affordable and other people share it and also comment. Craigslist and Zillow are the best for my Hawaii rental.


uniwelder

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2021, 08:37:18 PM »
I put my two houses (same size and same neighborhood, walking distance to a university) up on Zillow and Craigslist 48 hours ago, with messages from about 30 people (half from Craigslist, half from Zillow) and 300 views each, according to Zillow.  We'll do a showing this weekend and likely sign leases then. 

I find navigating Zillow's rental page to be incredibly confusing and trying to reliably locate the # of property views was much too difficult.  I got to it easily for one house, but then kept clicking back and forth on various pages to attempt to locate it for the other house.  I wish they condensed everything to a single webpage that had all the information available, rather than various pages with tidbits and circuitous (and seemingly broken) routing.

I've never used Facebook to advertise a rental, but based on other random stuff (decluttering the garage) I've tried selling, Facebook people were much more flaky than Craigslist.  One item had 8-9 replies, everyone swore they absolutely wanted it, please mark as sold, they are coming asap to pick up, and not a single person followed through.  Based on that, and @clarkfan1979 comment about discussion of the property online, I have no desire to attempt to go that route.  Craigslist and Zillow work very well for me.

clarkfan1979

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #12 on: March 25, 2021, 05:08:58 AM »
I put my two houses (same size and same neighborhood, walking distance to a university) up on Zillow and Craigslist 48 hours ago, with messages from about 30 people (half from Craigslist, half from Zillow) and 300 views each, according to Zillow.  We'll do a showing this weekend and likely sign leases then. 

I find navigating Zillow's rental page to be incredibly confusing and trying to reliably locate the # of property views was much too difficult.  I got to it easily for one house, but then kept clicking back and forth on various pages to attempt to locate it for the other house.  I wish they condensed everything to a single webpage that had all the information available, rather than various pages with tidbits and circuitous (and seemingly broken) routing.

I've never used Facebook to advertise a rental, but based on other random stuff (decluttering the garage) I've tried selling, Facebook people were much more flaky than Craigslist.  One item had 8-9 replies, everyone swore they absolutely wanted it, please mark as sold, they are coming asap to pick up, and not a single person followed through.  Based on that, and @clarkfan1979 comment about discussion of the property online, I have no desire to attempt to go that route.  Craigslist and Zillow work very well for me.

@uniwelder I'm getting read to advertise my Fort Collins college rental in about 3 weeks. I normally get a lease signed around May 1st for a "move-in" date of August 1st.

For my Florida college rental, I typically advertise on June 1st and get a signed lease by June 15th for a August 1st "move-in"

For your college rentals that you just listed, when is the "move-in" date?

uniwelder

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #13 on: March 25, 2021, 06:23:50 AM »
I put my two houses (same size and same neighborhood, walking distance to a university) up on Zillow and Craigslist 48 hours ago, with messages from about 30 people (half from Craigslist, half from Zillow) and 300 views each, according to Zillow.  We'll do a showing this weekend and likely sign leases then. 

I find navigating Zillow's rental page to be incredibly confusing and trying to reliably locate the # of property views was much too difficult.  I got to it easily for one house, but then kept clicking back and forth on various pages to attempt to locate it for the other house.  I wish they condensed everything to a single webpage that had all the information available, rather than various pages with tidbits and circuitous (and seemingly broken) routing.

I've never used Facebook to advertise a rental, but based on other random stuff (decluttering the garage) I've tried selling, Facebook people were much more flaky than Craigslist.  One item had 8-9 replies, everyone swore they absolutely wanted it, please mark as sold, they are coming asap to pick up, and not a single person followed through.  Based on that, and @clarkfan1979 comment about discussion of the property online, I have no desire to attempt to go that route.  Craigslist and Zillow work very well for me.

@uniwelder I'm getting read to advertise my Fort Collins college rental in about 3 weeks. I normally get a lease signed around May 1st for a "move-in" date of August 1st.

For my Florida college rental, I typically advertise on June 1st and get a signed lease by June 15th for a August 1st "move-in"

For your college rentals that you just listed, when is the "move-in" date?

The move-in dates are July 1st and August 1st.  It seems silly to advertise this early, but its largely driven by the big student apartment management companies. They ask their tenants to resign a lease by February, otherwise the students lose their place pretty quickly after that.  If I were to wait until May or later, which has happened occasionally,  I usually end up flooded with responses from desperate people, mostly because they didn't realize how difficult finding a small single family house would be.  I like renting to people that can take the time to evaluate whether its a house that suits them and keep them for a few years, rather than using it as a placeholder until they find something else 12 months later.

Papa bear

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2021, 02:46:01 PM »
I put my two houses (same size and same neighborhood, walking distance to a university) up on Zillow and Craigslist 48 hours ago, with messages from about 30 people (half from Craigslist, half from Zillow) and 300 views each, according to Zillow.  We'll do a showing this weekend and likely sign leases then. 

I find navigating Zillow's rental page to be incredibly confusing and trying to reliably locate the # of property views was much too difficult.  I got to it easily for one house, but then kept clicking back and forth on various pages to attempt to locate it for the other house.  I wish they condensed everything to a single webpage that had all the information available, rather than various pages with tidbits and circuitous (and seemingly broken) routing.

I've never used Facebook to advertise a rental, but based on other random stuff (decluttering the garage) I've tried selling, Facebook people were much more flaky than Craigslist.  One item had 8-9 replies, everyone swore they absolutely wanted it, please mark as sold, they are coming asap to pick up, and not a single person followed through.  Based on that, and @clarkfan1979 comment about discussion of the property online, I have no desire to attempt to go that route.  Craigslist and Zillow work very well for me.

@uniwelder I'm getting read to advertise my Fort Collins college rental in about 3 weeks. I normally get a lease signed around May 1st for a "move-in" date of August 1st.

For my Florida college rental, I typically advertise on June 1st and get a signed lease by June 15th for a August 1st "move-in"

For your college rentals that you just listed, when is the "move-in" date?
College listings for our “big state college” start in October for August 1 move ins.  It’s crazy to lease places out 10 months in advance, but that’s the demand to get students in there.  Not sure if that has anything to do with Facebook being more popular in that area.


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clarkfan1979

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #15 on: April 22, 2021, 01:49:02 PM »
This is an update for my Fort Collins rental, which is about 0.6 miles west of campus (Colorado State University).

My current tenants told me that they wanted to re-new the lease for next year but were dragging their feet. They missed my deadline, so I posted an ad on Tuesday night to show the house on Saturday and Sunday. Once I sent them an email stating that dozens of potential applicants will be walking through the house this weekend, like a miracle, they got their shit together and got me a signed lease within 24 hours.

My ad was posted on zillow for 36 hours. I got 304 views and 7 requested showings from zillow. I got zero emails from craigslist. It was only 36 hours, but craigslist might be a thing of the past for my Fort Collins rental.

I'm still going to use craigslist for my Hawaii rental. 

PMJL34

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #16 on: April 23, 2021, 10:29:10 AM »
Just another data point in the bay area:

Listed rental on Craigslist and Zillow. Both were free to list. I did list slightly below market value so got plenty of interest within 2 days and had to take the ad down. I would say that both listings generated great applicants. I would guess 60% traffic from zillow and 40% from craigslist.

Best of luck!

SndcxxJ

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #17 on: April 24, 2021, 07:50:38 PM »
Just another data point in the bay area:

Listed rental on Craigslist and Zillow. Both were free to list. I did list slightly below market value so got plenty of interest within 2 days and had to take the ad down. I would say that both listings generated great applicants. I would guess 60% traffic from zillow and 40% from craigslist.

Best of luck!
I think you mentioned that you are in the Bay Area same as me, correct?  If so, this is a very different experience than what I have.
I get near zero applicants from craigslist, a few from apartments.com, and the vast majority from zillow.  I've never tried facebook marketplace, because I'm not active on facebook so I'm unfamiliar with it. 

PMJL34

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #18 on: April 25, 2021, 12:45:04 PM »
Yeah I'm in the bay area as well. I agree that Zillow appears to be king right now in terms of attracting tenants. I think I got responses even from craigslist just because I priced it below market and because the home is in great shape. I still remember when craigslist was king just 3-4 years ago. Times have certainly changed. My friend also posts on both craigslist and zillow and prefers zillow by a wide margin. I think we all post on both platforms because why not?

I'm not on facebook and have never used it, but have heard that it's a decent place to post ads.


SndcxxJ

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #19 on: April 25, 2021, 01:33:23 PM »
Craigslist used to be the only place I needed to advertise.  Now it's basically all zillow.  Before craigslist it was a three line ad in the newspaper for a couple hundred bucks for a month long ad.  $10/week for zillow seems expensive compared to the very recent past, but it seems very cheap for the level of advertising compared to the less recent past.

marion10

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #20 on: April 25, 2021, 05:51:04 PM »
When I was looking to rent a few years ago, I found too many scammy listings on Craigslist. I would call and they didn’t have the apartment they said they had- but something just like it. I gave up using them.

srad

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #21 on: May 10, 2021, 10:32:44 AM »
I just had a tenant break a lease, I put the unit on Craigslist at 8:30am Saturday, by Noon i had 8 calls/emails/texts.  By Sunday Over 20 people contacted me.  Unit has been filled.  SCraiglist is still going strong in my area.  Now I'm wondering if I under rented it... 

clarkfan1979

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Re: zillow web traffic for rentals
« Reply #22 on: May 14, 2021, 03:53:23 PM »
I just got done renting out the upstairs for my Kauai rental. I got a signed lease and deposit within 5 days. I also got 913 views on zillow over those 5 days. Zillow and craigslist were about 50/50. Probably about 40 inquiries, but I didn't count them.

My previous tenants were paying $2900 last year. I raised it to $3200 and it didn't seem to make a difference. One family offered more than asking ($3400). However, I already committed verbally to another group, so I didn't take the extra money.

The rental market is extremely tight on Kauai right now. I got an email from an engineer working at the Navy Base (PMRF). He is currently on Kauai by himself. He has a wife and 4 kids that are still on the mainland. He has been looking for a rental house for 7 months and hasn't been able to get anything. Yikes.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2021, 03:55:26 PM by clarkfan1979 »

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!