How can I advertise my property for free? Managing rental property involves a ton of moving parts. There’s handling maintenance requests, collecting rent, tenant issues, you name it. But let’s not forget, if you can’t keep your units and properties occupied, it’s all for nothing. There are lots of great places to advertise rental property now online. Fortunately, most of those places are opportunities to advertise for free (or nearly free). That’s where this guide comes in. First, we’ll cover a number of different ways you can advertise your rental properties for free. Then, we’ll cover a number of the best rental listing sites, all of which allow you to list your properties for free (or low-cost). Let’s start with ways to advertise your property for free. Free rental advertising techniques It’s always been possible to advertise your property for free. However, nowadays there are more ways than ever, and more places too. Here are four of the best ways to advertise your property for free online: 1. Post on social While not the most effective method, posting to social media is still a decent free advertising option. This becomes even more worth it if you’ve invested in creating content online, allowing you to amass a following that will then see your listings. Regardless, however, posting even to a few followers can help get the word out at little to no cost. 2. Advertise locally with signs Don’t underestimate the value of a good ol’ sign. People will drive around their neighborhood looking for “for rent” signs. And even if they don’t, if they’re driving around the area to see a property or apartments already, by putting up a sign there is a good chance those same people will see it and stop off to see your property as well. 3. Build an email list Email is one of the most powerful forms of “free” digital marketing, but it’s oft-overlooked. By creating a way for visitors to sign up to receive an update whenever one of your units opens up, or by posting useful content online to your target market, you can build a list that’s highly engaged and likely to respond to an email advertisement for your listing. Even if the list doesn’t have many emails on it, those that are will be highly likely to respond to your listing if emailed, so it’s well worth the effort. 4. Post to rental listing sites Rental listing sites are one of the most common forms of advertising rentals online today. They include sites like Zillow and Trulia, the types of apps and platforms renters use in the majority of cases when they’re looking for a rental property. That makes these extremely powerful and convenient, as posting your listings to most of these platforms starts out free. Top advertising methods We covered a number of great ways to advertise your rental property for free so far. But is there a best way? A way you can use to get the biggest return on your time investment? If you had to choose only one of these methods– or one to start with– which should it be? By far the most effective way to advertise your rental property for free online is through rental listing sites such as Zillow and The reasons are multiple: You can “borrow” from each platform to access thousands of potential leads in your area just by putting up your listing It’s one-and-done, meaning you create the listing for the vacancy once and it stays up until the unit is filled (on most platforms) It’s true that spending a little to increase exposure will get your unit filled faster. However, you don’t need to spend anything, or much of anything, depending on the platform.