Where would you advertise a house for rent near Ottawa Street North?

[Addy]

We have a small 2 bdrm house on Rosslyn Street North - I know it's not the best area, but the neighbours are excellent and it's close to Barton Street Mall and Ottawa St N stores, farmers market and (my fav!) Cannon Coffee Co!).

Our tenants have given two months notice as they are moving (they had a job offer out of province).

I've emailed local community co-ops and groups (Such as Mustard Seed, Ottawa St North BIA, etc) but I'm looking to find more places I can search out good tenants (or possibly good, I realize there's no guarantees).

If you were in my shoes, where would you advertise in hopes of getting decent tenants? I'm not into kijiji as I find there's too many replies and most seem to be from unemployed people with no valid references.

[HillStreetBlues]

Great idea e-mailing the BIA. My only suggestion would be to e-mail churches in the neighbourhood: they usually have a section in their church bulletin for people searching for housing, and occasionally offering housing.

You do get tonnes of replies from kijiji, but you can safely ignore the vast majority of them. If you say “E-mail and tell us a bit about yourself,” and then you get a one-line reply (“when can i c this house?”), it only takes a second to delete it. If they give some information, you can get a lot more via e-mail before actually taking the time to show them the place.

[kwoldtimer]

Put an ad in the paper (only).

Check out the article in today's Globe and Mail magazine on how landlords can protect themselves against bad tenants. Some of it might seem a bit anal, but it is very good advice.

No harm in checking with churches, I suppose, but keep in mind that has no correlation to whether or not someone is going to be a good tenant (could, in fact, tilt the other way...)

[Pearlstreet]

Avoid a lawn sign in a bad / not terrific area. I have a rental where I did this and it invited only the worst in, who later broke in and robbed the place. Hind sight twenty-twenty.

[CaptainKirk]

Kijiji

http://hamilton.kijiji.ca/f-real-est...l-W0QQCatIdZ43

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

No harm in checking with churches, I suppose, but keep in mind that has no correlation to whether or not someone is going to be a good tenant (could, in fact, tilt the other way...)

Just to clarify, I was in no way suggesting that church-goers are more likely to be dependable tenants, or anything else. It was just an idea of a group that can spread word about your rental, and who might be interested in doing so. If you’re not interested in the internet, like the poster said, it is one option of many. It's still imperative to thoroughly screen candidates, regardless of how they found out about your property.

I think an important question to ask yourself is who your target market is, and where they go to look for housing. No younger folks will check the newspaper, and I think most people don’t any more. But if you have a property that for whatever reason you think appeals to an older demographic, maybe a newspaper ad is still the best bet for you.

I agree with PearlStreet, lawn signs are not the way to go in any kind of a marginal area.