Hi everyone, I’m just wondering if anyone knows of a website which allows FREE listing of rental properties. I am yet to find one – and I am very surprised by this. A lot say they do it, but when you click through enough forms you eventually get to credit card details.
Obviously if you advertise with an agent, your property will appear on the major sites like domain.com and realestate.com.au for free until you’re agent finds a tenant and then you’re up for the letting fee + GST.
So, anyone know of a (popular) site where owners themselves can list their rental property free of charge and potentially find a tenant free of charge as well? Obviously those who manage their own properties would be the ones who might know.
If you’re wondering I am a software developer thinking of creating such a service but haven’t come to the conclusion whether it’s an idea that would get popular really quickly or something that wouldn’t really be called for.
Mk.
I don’t know of any service, but would certainly use it if it was set up. The problem would be getting self-managers to hear about it. The newspapers are not going to let you run an advert that will take their customers away, so you can give that idea away.
I know that a couple of years ago I listed our houses with a web-based group but was not allowed to put their website details in my newspaper ad to direct potential tenants to a photo and more details because of the potential for the newspaper to lose business.
Don’t know how else you could quickly let self-managers know about your site except this site and Somersoft. Maybe a current affairs show would take up the challenge to get it out there.
You could contact accountants to see if they would pass the new site to their investment property clients, but they would not want to spend time or money doing so without something in return, I’d guess.
Wylie.
Thanks Wylie for your response, much appreciated. Yes that’s what I thought – self-managers would definitely be interested, because why not, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
So the way I see it, the biggest hurdle to overcome is to get it “out there” so to speak, because if it’s free then people would start to use it slowly, slowly and it should then become popular. There are ways to advertise the website online, effective ways that work, so even if newspapers, agents, accountants are reluctant to promote it, I think it will self-promote if done properly. Self-managers, people looking for rent, and maybe even the agents (if it became really popular) would advertise on the site.
Hmm….
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