Rental Home Marketing: Kim Kardashian or Jennifer Lawrence?

“There are pitfalls, lack of privacy, loss of privacy, and that’s not for everyone. For me, I can handle it.” Kim Kardashian (60 Minutes, October 2016)

“I teeter on seeming ungrateful when I talk about this, but I’m kind of going through a meltdown about it lately. All of a sudden the entire world feels entitled to know everything about me, including what I’m doing on my weekends when I’m spending time with my nephew. And I don’t have the right to say, ‘I’m with my family.’ … If I were just your average 23-year-old girl, and I called the police to say that there were strange men sleeping on my lawn and following me to Starbucks, they would leap into action. But because I am a famous person, well, sorry, ma’am, there’s nothing we can do. It makes no sense … I am just not OK with it. It’s as simple as that. I am just a normal girl and a human being, and I haven’t been in this long enough to feel like this is my new normal. I’m not going to find peace with it.” Jennifer Lawrence (Vogue, September 2013)

So, fame is a  mixed bag.  So many people work to be rich and well-known, and then realize they just want to be residential property managers (OK- not true- but it sounds like Jennifer Lawrence may potentially be convincible if we were able to get her at her lowest point).

But who cares about us?  What about our rental properties?  Should they be like Kim Kardashian, “handling” (if “handling” and “relishing” now mean the same thing) the pressure of being well-known?  Or like Jennifer Lawrence, shunning the spotlight?

In Kim’s world, our property manager is a marketing dynamo!  The rental property is on every website imaginable!  We see people using our marketing ad as a screen saver.  The magazine racks at the grocery store have publications with our property in there!  #502THEMainStreetCharlotte is trending and its master bath has its own Twitter handle!  Strangers are liking our home on Facebook and we’re getting rental inquiries from abroad!  Strange men are following our employees to Starbucks to get the inside scoop (“It even has dual vanities???  Crown molding!  I couldn’t even tell from the revealing Instagram photos!”)!  The management office looks like it is having a telethon. 

In the J Law (as the insiders refer to her as) world, the rental property would be left alone and no one would even know it was available..  “Shhh… it’s a pocket listing, I think.”  The only way to find it is to do an exact address search on www.BDFRealty.com (and if you mess up on spelling or spacing, you’re probably out of luck…).  Digital tumbleweed blows through your rental ad’s corridors.

So the Kardashian marketing method, though unnecessarily audacious, is probably the best plan to get a good renter quickly.  But what about if your rental marketing is producing the privacy J Law craves and is your new normal?

Try these things:

1. Google “rental homes in your town” and post the rental ad on the top 3 websites that allow you to do so.
2. Get the property on the local MLS that Realtors use
3. Put a sign up in the yard
4. Post the rental to your social media accounts

Here’s a bonus: make sure your property maps correctly on MapQuest and Google Maps.  We’ve occasionally run into some J Law results in our marketing, and upon some research, realized that the mapping companies had the rental property showing up on an ISIS air field (OK- not really- but you get the point).

“There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Oscar Wilde

Keep up with the Kardashians and Happy Landlording!