3 Ways to Improve a Rental Website

March 7, 2023

The housing market these days is constantly in flux for houses, apartments, and even cars. Because of this, many people are turning to renting properties and leasing cars instead of buying them outright. All of this makes the rental market more competitive. If landlords want to get more tenants, they need to up their game. Improving the rental website is one of the best ways to do this quickly and in a cost-effective way.

Use Secure Software

The most important thing for a rental website, even more important than how it looks, is that it is secure. Tenants will not feel comfortable making large payments to a site that does not have a safe way to make payments. Having an SSL certificate will add one layer of added protection that can put tenants' minds at ease.

Another way to make a website more secure is to use CIEM software. This software makes it so that only certain people have access to certain parts of the website. This both makes it easier for employees to use the backend of the website, but also makes it harder for hackers to break in to steal personal information. The average person will not know what CIEM software is, so there is no need to advertise that the website uses it. However, it can help take some stress off the landlord's shoulders.

List Prices Clearly

There is nothing more annoying to a renter than finding the perfect place and not knowing how much it will cost to rent. Some landlords may not want to list a price because they are afraid that high prices might scare potential tenants away. However, it's more likely that when a potential tenant sees a rental with no price listed that they will think "If they can't list the price, it must be super expensive." Listing the price is the best way to remedy this simple problem.

Better yet, try to include estimates for what the utility payments will be (if they are not included in the rent). Landlords can base this off the utility statements for previous tenants. If the house is a new rental, landlords can use a utility estimator to give a rough estimate of what tenants can expect.

Make sure to include any additional expenses. Some common examples include garage fees, pet fees, and deposits. The more information a tenant has, the more confident they can feel about making a commitment to rent.

Hire a Professional Photographer

Any good website needs to look professional and clean. Using a professional-looking website template is one way to achieve this goal. The better a website looks, the more likely tenants will be to trust it. This extends to the photos on the website. The more attractive the photos of the rentals are, the better the potential tenant's response is likely to be.

With the advent of smartphones, nearly everyone has a camera in their pocket. However, that doesn't mean everyone is a born photographer. If a landlord is not sure if they are good at taking pictures, then its for the best that he or she hires a professional photographer. This will have additional expenses attached to it, but it will be worth it in the end. The right photographer can make any rental look good. The better the rental looks, the more attention it will get online. The more attention a rental gets, the more applications the landlord will get and the faster the rental will be occupied. This all leads to the landlord getting paid faster, which is all any business person wants.

Running a rental website, whether it is for property or something else, owes its success to the website looking both secure, pretty, and informational. Landlords need to know how to strike this balance on their website If a landlord does not know how to make these changes, then it's time to hire a web designer. Remember, the more work you put into a website, the more you are likely to get out of it.