Property managers know that as critical as the rental showing process is, it’s also really time-consuming. Between scheduling and rescheduling appointments, hosting the tour (assuming the prospects show up!) and then following up afterward, it’s not a simple task. We recently dove into data that shows that property managers are busier than ever, due to a high occupancy rate and a low number of rental units available. In a tight market, property managers need to save time, and self-showings might seem like a dream come true. But are they really?
Automate Your Showing Process with Lockboxes, Self Showing Technology and More
In a self-showing, sometimes called an automated or lockbox showing, your tenant leads take their own self tours of your property without an agent present. When deciding whether self-showings are a fit for your residential property, you’ll need to weigh the benefits against the potential risk, plus think about the logistics of how it will all work.
Let’s start by comparing the pros and cons of automated showings.
The Pros
There’s a significant upside to self-showings, from real time savings to a more positive tenant experience.
Here are a few key benefits:
- Fill vacancies faster: We’ve found that properties offering self-showings take 17% fewer days on the market as compared to in-person showings.*
- Save tons of time: You won’t save just the time it takes for travel and hosting the rental property showings, you’ll also save the time lost in back-and-forth schedule coordination.
- Grow your portfolio: With no need to travel, you can start showing properties that are physically farther apart. This means that you can scale up your showings and grow your portfolio geographically without needing to add staff.
- Offer convenience: Prospective renters will love the flexibility, and you’ll expand your showings window without losing your personal life. We found that 26% of self-showings happen over the weekend, and 27% are outside normal business hours.*
- Ensure safety: Reduce personal safety risks for your agents and health risks for both parties by going contactless.
- Deliver happier experiences: Your rental leads will appreciate the “no pressure” approach of a self-guided showing, with no agent following them around or upselling.
- Address a need: We found that demand for self-showings is up 15% over in-person showings, so give the people what they want!
The Cons
This all sounds great, right? But there are some downsides to self-showings that you’ll need to consider or plan to address:
- Less personal touch: Ah, yes, the double-edged sword of our tech-based world. If your prospective renter has a question while self-touring, you won’t be there to answer it -- or to point out key selling features that may be easy to miss.
- Not right for everyone: Not all populations will appreciate a tech-driven self-showing. Some may struggle with self-serve technology, or they may just prefer to have a real, live person there to talk to.
- Requires vacancy: You can only consider automating the showings for physically vacant properties. It’s not advised to offer self-showings in properties that are occupied, as you won’t be there to help protect your tenant’s belongings.
- Risk: With any showing, there’s always a risk of damage, and that is even more true with unattended self-showings. However, there are ways to mitigate the risk. We’ll get into some of those next.
Tips to Optimize Self-Showings
If self-showings are starting to sound good to you, then we have some tips to help make the experience smooth and address some of the cons we’ve mentioned. Be aware that you’ll need to invest in the right rental software solution to enable secure access to your property and to automate key steps of the showing and leasing process to save time.
Here are our top recommendations:
- Use a tenant showing scheduler: With an online tour scheduler, you save the hassle of setting up appointments yourself. Your tenant leads can book and even confirm their own appointments online, reducing the risk of no-shows. Give them added convenience by looking for a scheduler that integrates with popular calendars like Google and Outlook.
- Invest in an electronic lockbox: You’ll need a smart lockbox to allow keyless entry to your rental property. Prospective tenants receive a one-time use access code and you receive alerts at the time of entry, so you know when people are inside your property. You can even use these lockboxes to grant temporary access to trusted vendors or maintenance staff. You can also pair your lockbox with a video camera for visual confirmation of who has been accessing your property.
- Fight fraud with AI: Rental fraud is increasing, and you need to protect yourself. Look for AI-based anti-fraud detection features, like the ability to identify (via a digital fingerprint) and blocklist known and potential scammers, or to upload prospective tenant IDs for verification.
- Be careful with descriptions: To continue with our theme of risk mitigation, don’t put the term “self-showing” in your online listing description. That could be an invitation to scammers. Instead, use terms like “contactless”, which communicate the value to your real tenant leads while being vague enough to deter trouble.
- Don’t forget the follow-up: Look for a property management software solution that lets you automatically send rental applications after every showing, saving you time and filling your vacancy faster.
Now that you understand how self-showings can help, and what you can do to make them even better, are you ready to test them out for your rental property or property management company?
We’re here to help!
*Stats provided by Tenant Turner
