I was recently on Google trends and found an interesting comparison between apartments for rent search queries and homes for rent search queries and their search volume for the last 3 years.

Homes for rent search volume almost surpassed apartments for rent search volume in the first part of 2007. I forecast that by early 2008 search volume for homes for rent will surpass that of apartments for rent and here are some reasons why.

Reasons why homes for rent will surpass apartments in search queries here.

I learned this from my sister.

One thing to consider when buying any service or product is that everything is negotiable. Below are some tips and tricks to use when trying to save money on your lease.

1) Look for rental properties during these months (Nov - Dec - Jan - Feb) :
These are historically the worst months to try to rent out a property. There are less people actually looking to move during these months but that is precisely why you can save money if you move during this time period. The landlords are more flexible in working with you because of the slowness in demand.

 View more ways to save on monthly rent.

While running a successful rental marketing company and renting out my numerous rental properties. I have picked up a few tricks along the way.

Below are 20 ways you can rent out your home faster (There are plenty more ideas and if you have some please comment and I can add to the list):

View all 20 was here. 

The papers are coming out strong and looking for ways to continue to monetize their traffic.

Google has launched print ads where adwords advertisers can now buy inventory in over 250 newspapers. Advertisers can select which papers they would like to run their ads in, enter a price they are willing to pay, and wait to hear back from the publisher on whether or not they want to accept the bid.

Some stats from NORI Research, How America Shops & Spends 2006
Scarborough Reader Engagement Study 2006:

40% of readers say newspapers have trustworthy ads - more than any other medium
85% of readers say they have bought something advertised
62% of reasers not doing any other activity when reading the newspaper

More information on the google print platform:

http://services.google.com/training/adwords/printads/print_adwords/#slide=1

I thought this was a rather interesting study on CEOs and real estate. Originally on the iPienso blog:

A new paper by Crocker Liu and David Yermack, ‘Where Are the Shareholder’ Mansions? CEOs’ Home Purchases, Stock Sales and Subsequent Company Performance.” Key finding:

When a CEO buys real estate, future company performance is inversely related to the CEO’s liquidation of company shares and options for financing the transaction. We also find that, regardless of the source of finance, future company performance deteriorates when CEOs acquire extremely large or costly mansions and estates…

When the CEO does not sell any shares, his stock performs significantly better ex post than the stocks of firms whose CEOs do liquidate equity to finance their houses. The retention of company shares simultaneous with a new home purchase, despite the presence of an evident personal liquidity need, appears to send a signal of commitment by a CEO to his company.

 

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 Rent My House Advertising

A recent report from Atlas Institute's "How Overlap Impacts Reach, Frequency and Conversions" states that

"Consumers reached across multiple publishers were twice as likely to convert as those reached only on a single publisher."




Jed Flower , analyst, Atlas Institute States, “Overlap across publishers has tremendous implications for an ad campaign’s performance, marketers can no longer ignore the magnitude of reaching consumers across multiple sites.”

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Real Estate Marketing

A great blog article written by Cory Treffiletti of online spin talks about how advertising is becoming much more vertical to reach the long tail of users.  Advertising platforms are becoming the #1 destination to reach a more targeted audience.

"All of these models signal the shift away from large aggregate audiences towards the development of solutions to reach the long tail and provide advertisers with the ability to go deeper into the lives of their audience."

"These long-tail vertical networks provide access to a targeted audience at a lower cost, in a way that is attractive to advertisers."

Rent Marketer will continue to add to our distribution platfom and will continue to be the leader in providing a platform for advertisers to reach a targeted audience of users searching for rental properties. This is truly the longtail of rental advertising.

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 Rent My Home Advertising

An article by Borrell And Associates

Some point from the article:

Real estate advertising has remained virtually unchanged at $11.6 billion. Home sales have slowed down, meaning agents have more inventory to advertise but less money to spend on that marketing. Despite the hype about Internet advertising, there is plenty of room for growth: Most agents don't even have a Web site or advertise online. Online real estate advertising will grow to a $2 billion category this year and swell to $3 billion by 2010, surpassing the longtime leader, newspapers.

 

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 Rent Your Home

An article in the WSJ today talks about how owners who cannot sell their home are not turning to renting out their properties and have become accidental landlords.

Some stats from the article:

Accidental landlords aren't big players in real estate: 67% own only one property. They are more likely to have a full-time job in addition to managing a property: 80%, compared to 67% of landlords who bought property with the intention of renting it. Many purchased during the real-estate frenzy of the past few years: 72% have owned the properties they're renting out for nine years or less.

Accidental landlords are mostly middle-aged: 47% are between the ages of 45 and 54, compared with 35% of intentional landlords. They're also more likely to be female (56%, compared with 36% of intentional landlords).

Rents are on the rise across the U.S. -- nationwide, apartment rents average $939, up 4.4% from a year ago, according to real-estate research firm Reis, Inc.

Times will get tougher for renters over the next year: Nearly seven out of 10 intentional landlords and 55% of accidental ones plan to raise rents over the next 12 months.

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Rental Advertising