How to Show Your Rental Property While It’s Occupied

As a landlord, you’ll come across instances where your current tenants will not want to renew their lease — leaving you with no choice but to begin finding and screening new tenants. As a result, you may have to show your rental property while it’s occupied, which can be tricky to do at times.

To make the rental property showing process easier, we outlined tips and tricks to showing your property while occupied to help you find your next tenants in no time.

5 Tips to Showing Your Property Currently Occupied

Property showings can seem daunting at first, but they’re easy to do with the right steps. Here are five tips to consider when planning to walk prospective tenants through your property.

1. Ask for a Convenient Time 

Your current tenants are most likely aware you’ll be showing the property to prospective tenants. But in order to begin the process successfully, the property showings should be scheduled at a time that works for both you and your tenants. Here’s an example on how to approach your tenants on timing:

“Hi Joe, I need to show your unit to prospective tenants this weekend. Do any of these times work for you: Saturday at 10:00am or 1:30pm, or Sunday at 9:00am or 12:30pm? Please let me know at your earliest convenience.”

By giving your tenants options, you are working with them to find a convenient time. This helps avoid disrupting their schedules.

2. Notify Current Tenants 

Once you set a date and time for your property showing, landlords should provide a tenants a reminder so they can plan accordingly. It’s important to note that most states require landlords to provide any tenant a 24 to 48-hour notice before entering the unit.

In addition to providing legal notice of entry, you also want to give them a heads up so they can clean the property. Just remember to always let tenants know when you plan to be at the unit, since providing notice of entry is the law. Find out the specifics of notice of entry in your state with our landlord-tenant law directory.

3. Offer to Pay for a Cleaning Service 

Unless tenants are motivated by an incentive (like a rent discount), they won’t want to do it since this could be an inconvenience to them. One way to get around this is to hire a cleaning service to clean the unit. You need to make sure the unit is clean and ready to make a good impression for possible new tenants, and current tenants will appreciate the free clean-up, so it’s a win-win.

4. Don’t Host an Open House 

Open houses are bad for several reasons. For one, they require that current tenants are not home for a longer stretch of time, whereas individual property showings are only about 15-minutes long.

Second, when you have several people in the unit, you’re not able to watch them as easily, which means you risk someone stealing your tenant’s belongings. Open houses are also bad for your tenant screening process because you’re not able to meet each tenant or get to know them.

The best way to show your rental unit while it’s occupied is to schedule shorter, individual property showings. You’ll likely only show the unit a few times before finding high-quality tenants that fit your requirements.

5. Thank Your Current Tenants 

As a landlord, it is your right to show your rental property to prospective tenants, but be sure to remain respectful of your current tenants. After all, you are letting strangers into the unit while they live there.

You can send a thank-you note or small gift, offer an incentive like a rent discount for the month, or simply let them know you are aware of the inconvenience and thank them for being accommodating.

What Are the Benefits of Showing Your Property While It’s Occupied?

While it can be a headache to work around your tenants’ schedules, showing the unit while it’s occupied has its benefits. One benefit is that the unit looks like a home. When there’s furniture in the unit, prospective tenants can easily imagine themselves living there. The key to securing a tenant’s interest is to show them the unit in a way that makes them excited to move in and live there.

Another benefit is that you are showing off you are a responsible landlord. After all, you have tenants in your unit and you’re doing everything right: screening new tenants and showing your rental property.

Screen Your Prospective Tenants

If you find tenants who are interested in your rental property and you want to move forward with them, the next step is to send them a rental application and begin the tenant screening process.

A rental application will give you insight into their income, employment status, and prior residences, and the tenant screening reports will give you important information about their financial responsibility, background checks, and eviction history — all necessary to evaluate before making any decisions.

Use our free rental application and free tenant screening reports to get all the necessary information about a prospective tenant before you offer them a lease.