According to the 2002 National Association of Realtors 2002 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, there were 6.2 million single family homes sold in 2001, an increase of 69 percent over a ten-year period, bringing home ownership to an all-time high. Eighty-seven percent of those homes purchased were single-family homes. A whopping 45 percent of those homebuyers were renters, and two percent of those purchased the home they were renting.

Stock market declines, record low interest rates, and easy credit terms have encouraged many toward real estate, whether they are first-time buyers, repeat home buyers, vacation or second-home buyers, or investors.

The story that hasn't been told is what is happening to those homes without owner-occupants. In the rush to buy, what is happening to homes for rent?

Many homeowners were transferred (10 percent of homebuyers,) while others are losing their jobs. Others purchased homes with the intention to make money from them. These homeowners are finding that renting their homes isn't as easy as they thought it would be.

Robert Fowler, developer of Rentlist.net, says, "There are plenty of homeowners with homes to rent. The challenge is in finding renters."

Until now, says Fowler, most rental home operators, whether homeowners or professional property managers, have had to rely on traditional ways to market rentals - local newspaper classified ads. Yet, he says, classified ads are getting more expensive and less effective.

"The last time I checked, a three-line, one-day ad in the Atlanta Journal for the Sunday section was about $90," says Fowler. "and they would put it on the Internet for an extra $15."

As a property manager of about 150 properties, Fowler could see that print media was being left in the dust by the Internet. Renters, like homebuyers are going to the Internet to find homes to rent. Seldom, says Fowler, will an Internet renter or buyer go to print media to look for information. That makes classified ads even more prohibitive.

Yet cost-effective opportunities on the Internet were also limited, he found.

"There are no portals for single-family rentals like there are homes for sale," says Fowler, "and the big companies who try to do single-family rentals either cater more to apartments or they simply don't understand the property management business. For example, on Yahoo home rentals, the ad length is for 21 days. You can't lease a house in 21 days, you need at least 45 days."

There are a lot of agents, he says, who aren't members of local MLSs because they don't sell properties - they manage them. "Most MLS services will only include rentals if they have to," he says.

"Your job is to get the home rented,' says Fowler. "The Internet is a good medium. It's a win-win situation for both the property manager and the prospect."

He says Internet prospects are preferable as rental prospects. "The prospect is further along in the education process," says Fowler, "they have already looked at where the property is located; they rule out properties by photos, and if you don't have a photo, they rule it out altogether. They use the Internet as much for elimination as selection. This is good for the property manager because you don't have to invest time in long conversations like you used to. You could spend 15 minutes giving directions, when an Internet prospect would rather just get directions off the map."

"The Internet saves time and money," says Fowler. "You're more efficient. There is a lot more detail you can give your rental listing than a three-line ad."

So with classifieds getting too expensive, renters going to the Internet, and agents needing a place to expose their single-family rentals, Fowler decided the time was right to start his own series of Web sites to showcase single-family home rentals at a site called Rentlist.com.

"Renters go to the same places I go to when I want to find something," says Fowler, "Google, Yahoo, and MSN."

And then one thing led to another.

"Well, my Web page did so good I started referring both property owners and tenants to property managers in other areas of Atlanta that I did not serve," says Fowler. "Pretty soon I found myself developing RentList.net, Atlanta's Directory of Residential Property Managers. Rentlist.net has been a huge success. It is both a directory of Atlanta area managers and has a database of home rentals. RentList.net dominates the Atlanta home rental market and gets 80,000 visitors and 700,000 pageviews per month."

Soon he was getting calls from real estate agents and homeowners who wanted to list their homes on Rentlist.net. "I refused because it was only for property managers," says Fowler, "but I could see there was a need, so I started AtlantaRentalhomes.com. This is where anyone can post an ad on the Internet for their rental home."

Fowler soon took the idea nationwide to a site called Homerentalads.com, which covers 13 metros including Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and more. To date Homerentalads.com has attracted 5,400 ads, and 7000 visitors daily, according to the site.

A quick search on Google for "dallas rental homes," brings up 301,000 results. Fowler's sites, www.Dallas-home-rentals.com and www.Texas-home-rentals.com are numbers one and two of the results.

He believes he has hit on something that could be big. Interest rates are starting to rise, which could cool the homebuying market. Job loss or even job gains could also make the rental market more favorable, as homes with less than three years equity couldn't be sold at a profit.

"There is the opportunity for real estate salespersons and property managers to work with each other in a way that hasn't been done before, using the Internet," says Fowler. "You are getting a lot more owners and the customers are hard to find. You want the Internet customer - they don't need a lot of hand-holding."

Published: November 1, 2002

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