This is a question we sometimes get when a property is taking a little longer to rent than usual. Many owners have seen apartment complexes offer rental incentives, usually something like a free month of rent, or a reduced security deposit amount, and they think that maybe that would be a good idea to get their property rented ASAP.
Unfortunately, what works in multifamily rentals doesn't often translate into what works for single family rentals. The reason is that consumer/rent behavior is different for both. Prospective tenants who are looking to rent an apartment will usually do so by actually visiting the specific apartment complexes they are interested in. They may narrow down the search using something like Apartments.com in larger cities, but ultimately, they're going out to visit those properties to see the amenities, talk to the front office staff, view the common areas, etc. Because of that, it is very easy for apartment complexes to compete on the basis of rental incentives, because they're able to advertise them on site at the property, and their leasing team is able to sell it in person.
Prospective tenants looking to rent a single family home use an entirely different process. The average tenant goes to Zillow, the dominant leader in single family rental listings, and because there are so many properties available for rent, they setup a filter to search the available rentals. Usually this includes the number of beds and baths, maybe square footage, the city, but most importantly the monthly rent price. There is no option in Zillow to sort by rental incentives. The only way to even list a rental incentive in Zillow is to put it in the marketing description. And since the average tenant isn't even seeing your marketing description because they're filtering out properties by base rent price, that isn't very helpful. Essentially, single family tenants are searching for properties the same way that you search for flights on Expedia. They're sorting by price and filtering out anything over that price. Rental incentives never enter the picture.
So, the best way to get your property rented quickly is to set the base rent amount competitively (or even aggressively if looking to rent fast). This will ensure that your property is seen by the maximum number of available renters.
