Attracting tenants, subleasers with "photo marketing"

Whether you're a property owner seeking a tenant or a tenant yourself seeking a subleaser, today's vacancy advertising methods have largely moved to the Internet, where marketing advantages abound.

Most online listing services, in contrast to traditional newspaper classified advertising, allow you unlimited space to describe your property. No more counting words, relying on weird abbreviations or deciding if it's more important to mention the unit's brand new hardwood floors or that cats are permitted with an additional security deposit.

Additionally, most online listing services now allow advertisers to include pictures with their listings. At www.easyrentcheck.com, for example, we allow up to five photos with each listing.

Few listing services will come to your property and take photos for you (although at www.easyrentcheck.com, we will) so an advertiser is often charged with the task of photo-taking himself. And make so mistake! These photos aren't like snapping pictures of your kids at the beach or catching Grandma opening her Christmas sweater; the photos you take of your rental units are bona fide marketing tools which can make the difference between a potential tenant calling you for a viewing appointment or calling someone else. And in a competitive rental market such as we see in Ohio cities like Toledo and Fremont, you need to run photo ads that get attention instead of getting overlooked.

So says Steve Burns, real estate professional and author of the real estate investment blog Cash Flow Treasures. Burns also happens to be a professional photographer, and he shares some excellent photo tips in a recent blog post titled, "Photo Marketing Tips to Say 'Attention Buyers!'"

Burns writes, "Your ability to control light, align perspectives and create an effective composition will drastically improve the power of your photographs." To read his tips on how to do just that, click here.