Self-Guided Tours: The Life Hack To Rent Your Property Without Headaches
Over the last few years, self-guided tours have become increasingly popular among landlords in an ever-busier housing market. They’re a great way to save you the time, stress, and cost typical of traditional house showings. What’s more, they also accelerate and simplify the leasing process for all parties involved.
In this article, we’ll explore self-tours in detail; the benefits they bring to landlords, managers, and tenants alike; and how you can turn them into the standard for your property showings moving forward.
What Are Self-Guided Tours And How Do They Work?
Simply put, this type of tour refers to autonomous and contactless property showings. They grant people on the hunt the ability to visit a home and get to know it first-hand, without needing an agent to escort them through the house.
This type of independent and at-your-own-pace tour gives people the time to explore a property’s every nook and cranny and envision themselves living under its roof, creating a stronger emotional attachment between a home and its potential renters.
This freedom and flexibility are akin to that of virtual reality tours. However, renters do prefer to check a property in person for long-term rentals, rather than taking a leap of faith based on information found online. As such, this type of tour is quintessential in improving your prospects’ experience from the get-go and increasing their willingness to do business with you.
The Rise of Self-Guided Tours
Self-guided tours first became popular in the real estate market as a byproduct of COVID-19’s social distancing guidelines. Yet, years later, they remain a favorite option for tenants and have gone on to become the new normal.
Among people’s favorite aspects of self-touring homes for rent are…
- …being able to schedule a visit when it’s most convenient for them
- …the ability to roam freely around a house
- …being able to take their sweet time looking at the aspects of a property that are most important for them
- …not needing to coordinate with an agent’s or landlord’s tight schedule
- …the lack of pressure to arrive or wrap up the visit at a specific time
This trend has turned independent tours into not only a competitive advantage to the home rental process but into a must to find success in today’s market. To put it in numbers, 83% of renters in the United States choose self-guided tours over dealing with an agent if given the option, according to German data aggregator Statista.
This, in turn, has made property managers stick with independent property tours, or at least incorporate them as part of their offer. Not adapting to this can drive a fair share of high-quality renters to rule your property out of their shortlist.
Benefits of Self-Guided Tours
Self-touring comes with a plethora of benefits for all parties involved in the leasing process, most of which lie in how they make tours efficient and more convenient.
Efficiency And Convenience
For starters, prospects can go ahead and schedule the date to visit that suits them best, while only having to account for their commitments and no one else’s. This alone accelerates the time from inquiry to tour since they’ll book only when they know they’ll be available.
To put this in numbers, 39% of current renters toured a property independently and an astounding 26% of people favor taking self-guided tours over a traditional one, according to the 2022 Renter Preferences Survey Report by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC).
The same survey reveals that 76% of renters find weekends to be the most favorable time for property tours. Needless to say, this is a huge plus that beats the logistical nightmare of coordinating schedules between prospects, agents, and/or landlords.
As such, your prospects will appreciate you putting their time at the top of your priority list, which helps them enjoy the experience without stress, hurries, or pressure to wrap up quickly.
Safety And Security Screening
A common concern for landlords is allowing strangers into their rental homes without supervision. Contrary to popular belief, self-touring can be as safe as, if not more than, guided tours.
To make sure this is the case for you, we recommend working alongside a reliable property management company that has meticulous safety and screening procedures in place to vet candidates interested in your property. This includes:
- Pre-Qualifying Prospective Tenants
- Verifying Identification
- Ensuring A Reasonable Move-In Timeline
- Keeping Track of Activity & Tour Schedules
- Soliciting Feedback from Prospective Tenants
This multi-layered screening procedure helps experienced property managers like Keyrenter prevent fraud, filter out unqualified prospective tenants, and ensure that whoever walks into your property is a good fit for the rental.
Reducing Cost Of Operations
Another aspect to take into account when weighing in between self-guided tours and guided ones is the rising costs of labor.
In-person showings incur a high cost of labor due to agents and fellow employees needing to spend time driving between, showing, and preparing properties for prospective tenants. Since average days on the market change depending on the season, it is hard to predict exactly how long it’ll take to occupy a vacancy; the number of visits you, your manager, or a leasing agent needs to show the property; and the amount of hours to be spent filling a vacancy.
Property managers usually charge between 50-100% of a month’s rent as a leasing fee to cover the cost of renting your property. However, companies with a deeper understanding of leasing operations produce consistent results by leveraging technology, automation, and self-touring, allowing them to offer flat rate fees that are faithful to the cost of the work done.
This pricing structure is more equitable both for you and property managers, and ultimately nets you more income as a landlord every month, on top of being more convenient and flexible.
Higher Conversion Rate
Perhaps the most important aspect to take into account for self-guided tours is that they convert more. According to data from NMHC’s OpTech Conference & Exposition, the lease conversion rate in independent tours increases by 86% compared to when staff escorts a prospect.
One explanation is that tours that don’t require a guide are much less time-consuming, making them more attractive overall to clients. This produces a higher number of leads, more viewings, and a higher conversion as a byproduct. As such, properties with self-touring spend less time in the market since they fill in at a quicker rate.
Tips Towards A Satisfactory Self-Guiding Tour Experience
Presentation Is Key
Before and between showings, make sure your property is clean, that no valuables or personal items are present, and that your property adheres to Minimum Property Standards. Working with a property manager automatically ensures this gets taken care of for you.
Set Up A Smart Lock
Installing a smart lock reinforces the safety behind self-guided tours. It gives visitors independent access to your property using keys that can be swapped out of access without the need to change an entire lock.
At Keyrenter, we use electronic lockboxes that integrate with our scheduling system through which prospects can schedule showings or get instructions and a code to open the lockbox where the key is stored.
Once your prospects leave, the code to access the key is changed as well, ensuring two layers of security that make your property as safe as can be.
Rely On An Exceptional Property Manager
The single best way to reduce unforeseen issues in self-tours is by relying on an experienced property manager who excels at communication with homeowners. After all, landlords need a clear picture of screening processes, filters, and safety measures put in place before and during tours.
As a landlord, your priority should be working with a manager with a proven track record and who has protocols in place to answer your concerns swiftly and thoroughly.
Should You Offer Self-Guided Tours For Your Rental Property?
Summing up the aforementioned, self-guided tours are…
- …highly convenient and flexible
- … efficient to schedule
- …easier and cheaper to operate
- …as safe and secure as it can get
- …leading to faster leasing and higher conversion rates than tours led by an agent
These benefits empower tenants to feel in control of the home-hunting process and make them more inclined to take a peek at your rental. After all, 40% of prospects that tour by themselves do so outside of regular leasing hours, according to Entrata.
While you may not want to make self-tours a priority from the get-go, you can still dip your toes and offer them in a small capacity, and work your way from there if you find it fits your needs.
To ensure a good experience offering this type of tour, we advise you to work with a property manager who knows their way around them and has your best interests in mind.
Interested In Offering Self-Guided Tours?
At Keyrenter, we let prospects choose to self-tour a property 7 days a week from 8 am to 9 pm as part of our integral service offering as property managers.
We’re ready and eager to handle everything for you to make owning property the hands-off, hassle-free passive income venture that you set out to achieve when first buying a home.
As your trustworthy real estate partner of choice, we’ll also provide you with regular updates and follow-up on every lead to ensure a quick and frictionless rental experience for both your tenants and you as the homeowner.
If you’re interested in knowing more, get in touch with us today to chat more, no strings attached!
Q&A
Q1. What’s A Self-Guided Tour?
A: Simply put, a self-guided tour is a type of property tour that doesn’t require a real estate or leasing agent to be present during the visit. It grants tenants the ability to see a home without supervision, at their own pace. They can be set up both for rental properties, as well as for properties on sale.
Q2. How Do Self-Guided Tours Work?
Self-guided tours give tenants the flexibility and freedom to book a tour at whatever time that’s more convenient for them. This includes during the evening on weekdays and weekends. This produces a higher number of leads, and more viewings, increasing conversion rates of prospects to tenants.
Q3. Are Self-Guided Tours Safe?
A: Yes, self-guided tours are as safe as in-person tours, since they mostly involve the use of smart locks and one-time codes to access a property. After a code is used once, a property can’t be accessed again with the same code. Instead, a new one has to be generated by the property manager for the next potential tenant.