A Welcome Start to My New Venture

I have my newly built apartment fully rented now. What a welcome start to my real estate venture in my hometown. I was quite surprised that such turnover happened at a quick phase. I recalled during the construction phase where I made my conservative speculation. That it would take me at least two months before I could fully rent it. This is due to the availability of apartments around the area. However, after a thorough observation doing my own survey, I found out that fifty percent of those apartments are old and needing upgrade. They lack the appeal to the wannabe tenants where most of them are in the mid thirty’s. I’d better lend my ear to what this group of people are looking for. Overcrowded tenants, such congested places creating negative comments from walks of life surely will scare them away, too. And yet after all, location still plays an important part of it. When I was still building my project, I noticed that people walking by kept asking of when the apartment will be ready for occupancy not minding the cost of the monthly rent.

And so after a week of completion and had my ribbon cutting done, I put up my sign. I ran three kinds of advertisement:

One - I printed out signs the size of regular printing paper and had it nailed on two electrical posts just between the vicinity of the location. Then, I posted another sign by my auto shop.
Two - I posted on the internet, forum section of sulit.com and entrepreneur.com, and
Third - is thru word of mouth.

Through out my posting, I received a lot of calls, text messages and emails. Every time I responded back I asked them of where they got the info. I found out that
seventy percent of the inquires got it from the posted signs, fifty percent were thru word of mouth (thanks to my friends and relatives, without their support, this won’t materialized), and fifteen percent were from the internet.
Of all those inquires, and after inspecting the place, various reasons came up again, on how they got turned down or why they turned it down:

1) Too many occupants. For a two bedroom renting by five, I believe its plain and simple too much. Rent includes free water supply, so my water pump and electricity consumption will suffer for too many users. Too many people living in a cramped place possess a safety issue. The area gets too warm to live, and sure enough most of their appliances will be running most of the time, like tv, stove, electric fan, etc. One more thing is unnecessary noise around the area creating an unpleasant neighborhood.
2) They couldn’t afford the down payment. I was asking a one month deposit plus a month of advance payment. I need this assurance incase my tenants suddenly vacate the place.
3) They found out that the place is too far from their work places.

For now, theses are just my thoughts, my observation… and as I go along, I am expecting more headaches will arise, more complains from left and right, more lessons to learn, more experiences to gain, more cash flow in hand, this makes my hubby a happy camper, and more ventures to follow. These will come up along this new found endeavor in my dealing. But first, let me not forget my important part in my family, for I am still a mother, a housewife, a homemaker, and a wife to an ofw.