Got some rooms to fill and posted on FB Marketplace. Most inquire and don't respond. Here's one who did:

Applicant (in response my pre-screening questions)::" Let me just say I have A 2yr old that will be coming with me and Im on a fixed income and that its so difficult for me to find a suitable affordable apartment to fit my budget income a month and Ive been looking"

Me: Please answer all questions.

Applicant: " I dont work I recieve SSI and SSD I recieve 749.00 a month I have no felony convictions I do have a misdemeanor back in 2010 already taken care of for child endangerment and currently out on bail which is already being handled and dealt with Christine and I’m looking to move asap also turning point will be giving you straight 1500.00 right up front if that’s something your willing to accept also have pathways possibly paying up to 3 months of total rent if your the owner and or landlord if you would like to talk my # is xxx-xxx-xxxx 1 feel free to call if you have any other questions and or concerns Thank You And I desperately need help in finding a place for my son and Myself Before Christmas. If you call we can talk and I can explain a lil more. Im up front truthfully honest about anything that you would like to know Im very neat clean and pay rent on time."

Note how she tries to change the subject and throw money out there---and it's not even her money LOL. Whereas she was truthful about the child endangerment charges, she failed to mention currently pending charges for criminal trespass, simple assault and drug possession. If applicants are PA residents, I'm finding PA Courts very good in providing up to date information. The service I use for background checks doesn't pickup current charges. Just for fun when I catch them in these lies, I'll occasionally send them the link to the court docket and innocently ask "Is this you?"

My ad has been on FB Marketplace for about a week. I have 156 views, 23 responses and one possible decent applicant. All others have either not responded to the pre-screening questions or if they did respond, the above is a representative sample. My experience with Craigslist is actually better. I just joined two local FB Groups and posted the ad there as well. Too early to tell how those will work. At this point, FB is like Zillow in the sense that people are just clicking on the ad. The only edge it has on Zillow is that I can manage my canned responses better as all responses are in one place where I can easily review them. Tenant demographics are bad.

Desperate Tenant,

See it all of the time on FB, the dumbest & most desperate. I find it humorous that an administrator on one FB site for rentals, continuously tried to demand they respond the way the landlords request to be contacted, either phone, private message, etc. They still demand to know, available, without the question mark! Pictures? More pictures? Rent to own? Consider pets? (when it says no pets) So all in all, a total mess. Administrator also lashes out at the drama queens/kings when they talk some trash about price, landlord, etc. She stated, do that on your own page, or in a private message. Yeah, good luck with that.

Like that term "pathways"

I recently started using Zumper and now I'm getting the same people posting on both Zumper and FB Marketplace. And on both sites many don't read the ad even when I put the "requirements" first.

Most of the questions deal with "is there a deposit or other fees" when the requirements state a credit check (and the cost) plus a security deposit (and the cost of such).

I had to chuckle this morning when someone posted late last night through FB asking about renting and I told them they needed to make an appointment to view the property and that I had applications at the rental house. The next thing I read is that they stopped by the place before 7 am this morning but didn't find any applications outside (I'm guessing they checked the mailbox).

Gail

I have a junk property in a separate LLC that may be coming vacant soon. I may go old school with the renting of that.

Sign in the yard and news paper. No digital hoopla. Got a job? How long? Criminal check? Good. Sure you can have your dog. Here's a month to month lease.

I just want to see the difference between that and the screening I do now when it comes to long term payments. (Lates expected).

Maybe all this screening and professionalism isn't really needed in this business. I don't know. I should try it with this next house and I very well may.

For those of you who think that it is a matter of choice on the part of the LL to use CL instead of FB, you may be missing the point. CL has died in many locales. It is FB, Zillow, or nothing but word of mouth advertising.

Thank you very much for having shared the responses, and I'm so glad that PA's court system keeps such important public records.

Thanks for the tallies on fb, zillow, and craigslist. I've noticed that around more and more residential rental properties are being advertised solely on zillow and not on craigslist in the areas of South San Jose and even in Saratoga.

We've never had a geographic location on CL close enough to do any good with advertising. It's NEVER been an option for us.

We had a local CL type on-line classifieds platform start up 10+ years ago. It's outlived its usefulness. I used to rent properties left & right from our NexTech Classifieds but no more.

FB is a cess pool but it's a necessary cess pool. EVERYONE looks on FB for EVERYTHING locally. I admin 3 different local rental groups. I keep a pretty tight rein on posts, posters & responses. There are a few people who constantly start drama but that's what FB is all about. I post on every BST page locally as well as Marketplace. I tend to shut off comments on my posts. If you want to look, you're gonna have to jump thru my hoops to get ahold of me. And I'm not checking notifications when every Tom, Dick & Harry tags every other Tom, Dick & Harry or people want to complain about my rental rates.

The other big PM company has been using Zumper so I started as well. I've placed my last 3 tenants from Zumper & showed another today that was going to return his app this evening. I've heard that for 2 weeks & am still showing so we shall see. Zillow & Zumper tend to draw more out of town prospectives & that's who I like to deal with. They're usually coming from out of state or metro areas for work, are used to paying higher rental rates & have better histories. Just what I see locally.

When you're advertising for free sometimes you get what you pay for. Any of these electronic sources is still miles ahead of newspaper ads. Doesn't take long to copy & paste my ads & post pics on every platform I advertise on. Usually my Sunday chore.....I get more responses on Sunday posts for some reason.