Here we are again, staring at the same Trends We Foretold in Early 2023, observed in real-time Later That Year, and rehashed A Couple of Months Ago. Longer market times, fewer leads, and more rent reductions. If this were a Netflix show, we’d click “Skip recap”. But hang with us. Because it’s time to talk about what to do when things slow down.
Perhaps not surprisingly, our data shows that renters prefer to tour listings around their workday, during lunch and after work especially. Yet showing agents tend to schedule tours around their workday. To align better with renters, and in effect get more showings, our data indicates that you should be shifting your showing schedule just an hour later. In other words, the early bird may get the worm. But lest we forget, the second mouse gets the cheese. Don’t take our word for it. We’ll walk through the data in this blog post.
In the market updates we released for February, May, and September of 2023, we warned of an increasingly soft rental market. Now we’re in the thick of it. Yes, there are some locales that might be an exception. But, nationwide, the applicants-without-effort party has been over for some time. By now, most everybody knows that, so we’re not claiming to break new ground here. But we’re going to show you the details of what’s going on, what comes next, and how you should respond.
Conventional wisdom says allowing pets will reduce your market times. But, we’ve looked at data from over one hundred thousand ShowMojo rental periods, and what that data has to say may surprise you. When it comes to pets, you don’t need to allow pets to keep market times lower. The real key is to be clear about your pet policy.
Are you sitting down? If not, find a seat. Because this quarter’s national leasing market update isn’t pretty.
We’re going to talk through some interesting charts below. But, (spoiler alert) no matter where we looked, days on-market, leads per on-market period, and rent reductions, it’s all going the wrong way.
No, it’s not the rental apocalypse. Market times are almost as bad as 2020 in the teeth of pandemic-induced lockdowns. However, let’s remember that while we were holding our collective breath through those months, the four horsemen never did come riding in. That’s the good news.
We’re doing something completely different with this week’s ShowMojo Newsletter. We have gobs of rental data in ShowMojo. We’re seeing a couple of major trends breaking. We feel compelled to share.