Zillow Rentals: How Does It Work for Real Estate Investors?

 

Are you considering listing a rental relatively quickly and easily in the United States? Then you’ve probably looked at Zillow Rentals. Being the biggest real estate marketplace in the United States, Zillow is undoubtedly one of the first stops for both novice and seasoned property investors seeking to add a new rental for people to see. Nevertheless, unless you’re very experienced in real estate investing, finding out if the site is worth your investment and time is complex.

In our article, we’ll go over the Zillow market data, see how Zillow works for real estate investors, and whether there is a better solution. Let’s dive in.

What Is Zillow Rental Manager?

Zillow Rental Manager, or Zillow Rentals, is a property management software that assists landlords in streamlining processes such as house listing, tenant screenings, and rent collection. The software was launched in 2006 as an online real estate enterprise. Through the platform, admins can construct rental agreements using the incorporated lease builder and send them to renters for electronic signatures.

The properties are frequently well-presented through images, 3D films, descriptions, location, and pricing. For these reasons, some landlords consider it the best rental listing website. There are other rivals to Zillow, each with its own distinct offering that attracts the attention of both landlords and tenants.

What Is the Cost of Zillow Rentals?

Zillow’s three listing sites – Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads – attract an average of 36 million monthly views. Previously, Zillow Rental Manager provided free listing services, but it recently introduced listing fees for all units. As a result, investors may wonder if they should continue to post their rental properties on Zillow. They may also be seeking a better Zillow Rentals option.

Zillow Rental Manager just began charging weekly rental listing fees in specific markets where there wasn’t a better alternative to Zillow. The following are the fees for the rental listing service:

The first listing is free until it is removed from the market (expired). After your initial listing on Zillow Rentals, each new listing is $9.99 per week. In addition, you will not be billed to operate your off-market properties or to use any of the other Zillow Rental Manager property management solutions, such as tenant screenings or online rent payments.

There are, however, extra Zillow Rental Manager fees to consider:

• The client pays $29 for each request and tenant screening report. They are provided at no cost to the landlord.
• For ACH bank transfers, online rent collecting is free for both landlords and tenants.
• Credit card transactions are subject to a 2.95% transaction fee to be paid by tenants.
• Regarding debit card transactions, tenants must pay a $9.95 convenience fee.
• Zillow Feed Connect costs $2.45 per listing each day.

Related: 16 Best Ways to Find Off Market Properties

Zillow Feed Connect

Zillow Rentals provide a product called Zillow Feed Connect that enables third-party listings throughout Zillow’s networks. It is available to landlords who use alternative rental listing websites or property management software that lists a rental on Zillow (also Trulia and HotPads).

Members of Mashvisor, for example, can list their rentals on the said sites. The postings can also automatically be distributed to Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads. They still must link their accounts to Zillow using Zillow Feed Connect, which costs $2.45 per listing every day.

Should You List Your Rental Property on Zillow?

Zillow Rentals comes with many valuable features, as investors can put in data like price, beds and baths, home type, and more and then make it easier for potential customers when searching for rentals. Let’s see some of the pros you get while using Zillow.

Visibility

When you advertise a rental property on Zillow, it gets published on three separate sites (Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads). When looking for a new place to live in the United States, many renters turn to one or more leading rental listing sites.

Zillow claims to manage a database of over 110 million houses in the United States, including those for sale, renting, and those that are not currently on the market. With over 36 million visitors every month, Zillow’s popularity ensures that your listings will receive maximum exposure.

Tools for Listing

Investors can quickly and simply list a rental on Zillow. It only takes a couple of minutes to create a listing. You simply enter property information, write a compelling description, upload photographs and videos, and hit the publish button.

Zillow Rentals also comes with a free 3D house tour app that may help you increase your listings. The app is helpful, especially now that people are taking steps to avoid personal contact due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The software is free to use, and you may upload as many listings as you want. You can shoot videos with your smartphone or any other camera, upload them to the app, and the software will generate 3D tours.

Using the “Rent Zestimate” function, the site may also assist you in listing a rental on Zillow at the correct price. You just need to type the address of your property simply. The tool will consider the physical qualities and features of the investment property, comparable homes in your market, as well as any other property details and public data, to arrive at a reasonable starting point for your optimal rental price.

Related: How to Calculate Rental Rate: A Beginner’s Guide

Resources for Property Management

Zillow Rental Manager also provides investors with a few property management resources. They’ve implemented cutting-edge technology for tenant screening, lease uploading (customization is accessible in some regions), e-signing, and digital rent payment. Clients can use the tools to obtain various services via the online platform.

Zillow also provides services to help with troubleshooting, feed assistance, listing inquiries, and reports. You can also receive weekly email updates to keep up to date on your portfolio’s performance.

Drawbacks of Posting a Rental Listing on Zillow

Although we’ve seen a couple of advantages that come with the platform’s usage, we’ve also found a few drawbacks through our research. That said, let’s see some Zillow Rentals’ cons and why you should maybe seek an alternative for it.

Cost of Zillow Rental Manager

The platform began as a free rental listing service where landlords and property owners market their rental or sell their property. But, they are currently charging property owners in the United States to list their properties, with the Zillow Rental Manager fee now fixed at $9.99 per week per unit featured on the website.

Although Zillow says that most homes placed on its rental listing service are rented in less than a week, numerous landlords report that properties frequently remain vacant for extended periods of time. As a result, the original $9.99 listing price might quickly escalate to $20, $30, or maybe more.

Low-Quality Leads

Zillow Rentals comes with a Lead Guarantee, which states that if you don’t obtain a lead within the first week, you can list for free until you get it (for up to eight weeks). Unfortunately, we’ve discovered that while Zillow provides users with a significant amount of leads, several of them are of poor quality.

The platform makes it simple for consumers looking for rentals to obtain information right from the listing. However, in many experiences, following up with or responding to the tenant generally results in no additional response from them. As a result, landlords devote resources and time to responding to the leads, yet they rarely result in any follow-up, let alone a viewing or request.

Lack of More Robust Features

Although Zillow Rentals provides tenant screening, collection of rents, and some lease signing features, it lacks some of the typical property management tools found in other property management platforms.

The software, for example, does not include reporting and accounting capabilities, nor does it provide a way for landlords and tenants to interact and address maintenance needs. Furthermore, options like lease modification and creation are now only available in Florida, Oregon, Colorado, and a few regions in Illinois.

Incorrect Data

One of its clients posted property on Zillow and ran into a problem. They entered the property’s address correctly; however, the address appeared wrong on the map after publishing the listing. In reality, it displayed the property in a different location. The only option to fix the error was to get in touch with Zillow’s customer support. The problem was eventually fixed (which is great), but who knows how many prospective tenants missed the listing or ignored it entirely.

Now that we’ve covered some of the cons regarding Zillow Rentals and its service, why don’t we look at an alternative to it?

Mashvisor as a More Precise Solution

Access to big data and artificial intelligence (AI) is powerful in the field of real estate investing in 2022 and far beyond. Experienced investors are looking for the best platforms for rentals and the most reliable data sources to examine and describe them. You’ve come to the right spot if you’re wondering how to invest in real estate with industry-leading real estate data analytics.

Mashvisor gives you all the data and details you need to do rental analysis and real estate market analysis on Zillow rentals or any other listings.

Real Estate Data Sources

Property data – such as an address, property features, property size, listing price, and many others – is obtained straight from the MLS database. Some more information is collected from public documents and other trustworthy publicly accessible sources.

Similarly, traditional rental data is sourced from Rent Jungle and HotPads, two of the most popular rental marketplaces in the United States. Meanwhile, the short-term rental data on the Mashvisor real estate software is sourced from Airbnb, a well-known online vacation rental site.

It means that every analysis of the investment potential of rental income homes for sale, often known as rental comps, is based on the actual success of comparable traditional or Airbnb properties. What is more, Mashvisor can also help you on how to find rental comps for any property.

Property Data and Analytics

It’s worth noting that our real estate investment tools may be used to analyze both traditional, long-term rental properties and Airbnb, short-term rental properties. First and foremost, Mashvisor provides access to the same fundamental property information as Zillow:

• Address and description of houses
• Characteristics of the houses
• Size of the house
• Listing price
• Redfin valuation
• Price per square foot
• Photographs of the property

Nonetheless, as previously said, the above information – while critical – does not offer investors enough variables to complete their investment property analysis. As a result, Mashvisor provides an entirely different set of rental data analytics, including:

• Traditional rental and Airbnb rental income
• Regular monthly expenses (Home insurance, utility bills, HOA dues, and more)
• One-time starting expenses (Repairs, closing costs, furniture and appliances, home inspection)
• Cash flow (Traditional and Airbnb cash on cash return, cap rate, occupancy rate).

Related: An Investment Property Cash Flow Calculator That Does All the Work for You

Tools for Analyzing Investment Properties

The Mashvisor real estate investing platform gives investors a variety of tools to help them make decisions about locating profitable Zillow properties for sale to rent out on a long-term or short-term basis. Here’s a list of some of the tools:

Real Estate Heatmap

The Mashvisor’s real estate heatmap was created with the goal of directing investors to the most profitable places in any US housing market based on their desired rental strategy. The tool consists of a color-coded map that indicates the neighborhoods with the highest and lowest scores:

• Listing price
• Traditional and Airbnb rental income
• Traditional and Airbnb cash on cash return
• Airbnb occupancy rate

Rental Property Calculator

Once you’ve selected a few Zillow properties for sale, you can use the Mashvisor rental property calculator to analyze their investment possibilities, including those with good cash on cash return. The calculator makes use of all of the real estate data and analytics to deliver a complete investment property analysis of any property in the US residential market.

Mashvisor’s investment property calculator functions similarly to a mortgage calculator, assisting investors in determining whether they can take out a loan to purchase a home and still end up with a positive return on investment. You may use our mortgage calculator to find out about:

• Down payment
• Loan amount
• Mortgage type
• Loan term
• Interest rate

Many more helpful Mashvisor tools can help any real estate investor make the most informed decision (Property Marketplace, Property Finder, Property Search Engine, Neighborhood Analysis Pages, and more) that we can go on about. However, it would be better if you test it yourself, right?

If you want to give Mashvisor a try, sign up for a 7-day free trial now and find the best real estate strategy for you.

Conclusion

For quite some time, Zillow Rentals was a top real estate platform – if not the greatest rental listing website – in the United States. The new Zillow Rental Manager fees for each listing, on the other hand, may convince investors to choose other property sites for listing and marketing services. That’s where the Mashvisor platform’s services come in helpful, streamlining and optimizing your investment property search and analysis.

To get to know Mashvisor more, sign up for a 7-day free trial, followed by a 15% discount on your quarterly or annual subscription.