In today's competitive rental landscape, the method you choose for showcasing your property can dramatically impact your time to lease and rental income. Our latest market analysis reveals a clear pattern when comparing traditional property manager led tours with modern self-showing options.

The numbers tell the story

In the last quarter, we saw properties on the market for 28.3 days when tours were exclusively hosted by the property manager, while properties exclusively using self-showings were on the market for 26.5 days.

We dug deeper and may have uncovered the biggest difference in showing types.  PM’s are able to lease a property in 4.3 tours, while self-showings take 7.2 tours.  That clearly shows that the level of expertise and service makes a difference.

Let’s flip that data on its head, though, because it also means that it’s much harder to schedule a tour that’s hosted by a property manager.  For a specific property, PMs are only able to coordinate 1 tour every 6.46 days while properties using self-showings have 1 tour every 3.66 days.  Again, property managers are better at answering questions and "selling" their property to renters when they're talking to prospects in person.  Unfortunately, their time is limited and tour scheduling is severely affected.

Each “person” icon represents one lead that’s able to successfully complete a tour

Why are self-showing properties leasing faster?

The shift toward self-showings reflects evolving renter expectations in our on-demand society:

• Scheduling Freedom: Today's renters prefer viewing properties on their own schedule, not just during an agent's available hours
• Pressure-Free Environment: Many prospects feel more comfortable exploring at their own pace without an agent present
• Immediate Access: Self-showings eliminate scheduling delays, allowing interested parties to view properties shortly after discovering them

How agent-led tours can catch up?

While self-showings offer impressive results, our data reveals another powerful strategy: engaging Showdigs agents to supplement your showing strategy.

When Showdigs agents are either taking the lead or supplementing the PM team, we’re able to facilitate 1 tour every 3.23 days – the highest frequency of all touring methods we analyzed.  Our data also shows a 1.8 day reduction in days on the market compared to PM-only-led tours.

This suggests that leveraging a network of third-party agents can increase your property's exposure to qualified prospects. Showdigs’ agents take agent-led tours to the next level:

• Always Available: With an on-demand team, the entire calendar is opened up and multiple prospects can tour at once
• Professional Feedback: Showdigs only works with licensed Real Estate agents who will provide valuable market feedback on your property's positioning
• Safety and Security: Having an agent at the property is a proven way to eliminate squatting, protect leads from scams, and ensure that all leads have a positive, safe experience on their tour

It’s also important to look at this from a higher level. Leasing an individual property is important, but so is considering the effect on your entire portfolio. You may very well learn that a lead that tours Property A but doesn’t end up signing a lease, is a perfect fit for Property B. The better level of service you can show them, the easier it is to schedule a tour of a property can all lead to a better relationship and more engagement across all of your properties.

By combining self-showing technology with Showdigs’ agent network, property managers can maximize both convenience for prospective renters and security for home owners

How about property (and lead) safety?

Let’s spend a quick second diving into the last item: Safety and Security.  All scheduling automation platforms, Showdigs included, provide a number of tools to reduce bad actors from gaining access to your self-showing properties.  We all verify IDs, we all have a flavor of a live selfie validation, additional scam warnings for leads, and Showdigs even provides a geolocation check before providing leads with the code to access your property.  

These are all great steps, but sophisticated bad actors can still work around these hurdles, leading to prospective renters getting scammed and even squatters taking over your property.  However, when a professional, vetted agent is the one that gets the access code to your property and hosts the tour, it’s nearly impossible for scammers to succeed.

The bottom line

The data is clear: leads aren't willing to jump through hoops to look at properties.  In order to get your property in front of the most eyes, you need to open up your calendar and allow leads to book when it's convenient for them.