REAL ESTATE: Online rental service off to quick start

Eight months after launching NorthernColoradoRentals.com, an online listing service for regional rental housing, Prue Kaley and Michael Levy are getting complaints.
?I just got a call today,? Kaley said. ?Someone said, ?We rented our house off this site. But we keep getting so many calls. How do I take it off???
It?s the kind of complaint Kaley can live with.
?The property managers are loving it,? she said. ?Not only are they getting exposure, but they?re finding they can cut back on the newspaper ads.?
Kaley and Levy, both landlords, started the service last year after concluding there should be a better way to market rentals.
They may have concocted the solution.
Active listings on the Web site have more than doubled between the end of February and the end of June, reaching about 400, Levy said. On a monthly basis, about 1,000 would-be renters are sending e-mails to landlords via the Web site.
The activity is paying off in revenues.
Levy said monthly sales ? listing fees collected from landlords ?are up 71 percent in June compared to April.
Levy acknowledged that summer is the ?busy season? for the rental market, but the numbers are still ahead of projections.
The early recognition of NorthernColoradoRentals.com is a testament to the all-out marketing blitz Kaley and Levy conducted in the first few months of business. The partners sent out 13,000 direct-mail postcards late last year, as well as employing bus benches and newspaper space.
Kaley, herself a real estate broker, also works the networking circles among real estate investors.
The response to the Web service also reflects the changing face of real estate marketing.
Internet marketing has gained peer status with traditional newspaper and sign advertising, or the so-called ?rack publications,? that are available for free.
The Internet is especially useful for out-of-town renters and homebuyers, who can view pictures of properties online along with layers of detail on each site. Levy estimates about 40 percent of NorthernColoradoRentals.com visitors live outside the area.
Dick Esselman, owner of All Property Services, which manages about 650 rental units in Fort Collins, has become a devotee of the online service.
?We used to advertise three days a week in the Coloradoan,? he said. ?We?ve cut down to just Sunday ? We think we?re getting more results off of the Web site than we were getting out of the newspaper.
?We still need to advertise in the paper. But I?d say something like 60 to 70 percent of the people we rent to have accessed the Internet.?
Due to the volume of information available online, Esselman said the result is ?better qualified leads and better qualified prospects. It reduces the time it takes to do showings.?
Kaley and Levy have been approached to take their rental listings model into other communities, but the pair seem to be content on keeping to familiar ground.
?The reason Mike and I have been able to grow this in eight months is because we have a market we know, and we have relationships,? Kaley said.

Editor Robert Baun covers real estate for The Northern Colorado Business Report. He can be reached at (970) 221-5400, (970) 356-1683 or via e-mail at bbaun@ncbr.com. His fax number is (970) 221-5432.

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