The winter months are always slow for rentals as people generally don't want to deal with moving during the busy holiday season, and moving can be practically impossible if we get snow. Larger properties are more susceptible to this as they are usually rented by families with children that are in school.
Avoid Winter Move-Outs
With that in mind, then, the best way to find a tenant in the winter is to keep the one you have. If the current good renter's lease is ending, it's often worth negotiating with them to stay on until the spring, either on a month-to-month or a 6-month contract.
You might need to offer them a deal to stay, but attracting a new tenant in winter often requires offering a deal or discount anyway. Better to get that out of the way up front than extend it over a whole year.
Generally, having an extra month's vacancy can be worth it to find the right long-term tenant. But in the winter, it can be worth lowering your rate to increase the pool of applicants rather than letting the property lie fallow for months. It's better to make a little less than usual in those months but have enough of a pool to screen properly for reliability, fit, and willingness to do a shorter or longer lease to avoid the winter problem in the future.
If we don't recommend lowering the rent, we are happy with the activity we are getting on the listing and do not feel there is any reason to be concerned that the property has been vacant too long for this time of year. We are following our standard vacancy practices in order to get your property rented as quickly as possible and will continue to communicate with the people who are submitting inquiries for the property 24/7 as we always do.
