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.
ShowMojo has been collecting data on this very topic for the last year and a half, and we like to review this data in quarters so we can see how it might shift over time. In the charts below, you’ll see that listings with no pet policy information tend to take meaningfully longer to lease.
The Case for Pet Policy Clarity
The green line represents listings with no information on their dog policy. In Q2 of 2023, you can see that these listings stayed on the market for five days longer than listings with a stated no-dog policy.
It is worth noting that allowing dogs appears to offer only a slight advantage. Listings that allowed dogs had market times of about one day fewer than listings that didn’t allow dogs.
Unlike allowing dogs, allowing cats appears to have no clear advantage based on our data.
But our main point is supported again here: lack of clarity leads to longer market times. As you can see, no-cats and cats-okay listings outperformed listings with no stated cat policy by at least five days.
Pick a Side… or Prepare to Wait
You’re either a cat person or a dog person. Some are neither. Turns out, it’s okay to be whichever you choose — at least in the leasing market.
What you can’t do, though, is sit on the fence. So take a stance and make your stance clear. The data shows that taking a clear stance is the best way to reduce market times.
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