Agent's Guide to Using RentHop

Welcome to The Walkthrough

August in NYC means one thing for renters: everyone wants to move in before school starts, before the semester starts, or before their patience with roommates runs out. Translation: you’re busy, and we know it. We’ll cut to the chase.

In this post, you’ll find:

• New features: New Updates To Lead Notifications
• Advertising tips: Reports and Insights Tool
• New Data Study: Annual RentHop Subway Study Released

Sharpen your advertising, showcase listings smarter, and stay connected with RentHop — so you can focus on what matters most: taking your clients on a walkthrough of their future home.

Based on advertiser feedback, we’ve shifted the way you receive leads from renters. Many service providers have stricter character limits on texts. Over the years, we’ve received many complaints from agents that their responses to renters were being cut/limited. As such, we are encouraging users to utilize non-SMS methods to respond to renters.

You will still receive SMS notifications whenever a renter inquires on a new listing; however, you may be prompted to move the conversation off of SMS and onto one of the other methods of communication.

For users who have utilized non-SMS methods of correspondence, further renter response notifications will come through other non-SMS methods such as email, app notifications, and your message portal on the desktop/mobile browser. New messages in new inquiry threads will continue to receive SMS responses unless you utilize a non-SMS method of communication.

Our recommendation is to download our mobile app, as that notification/response experience is the most similar to the SMS system. Download the app here

REPORTS AND INSIGHTS If you’re looking to add a new neighborhood to your advertising portfolio, or plan out credit allocation for your listings, the Lead Insights is an important report to start with.

In this report, each neighborhood being advertised on RentHop is ranked from 1-5 (one being the lowest, five being the highest) for both Lead Volume & Competition.

Lead Volume is based on the total number of leads generated by neighborhood. The higher the Lead Volume, the more leads that neighborhood receives.

Competition is based on credits spent per lead generated. Higher competition implies more agents advertising in that neighborhood and more credits spent per lead. When advertising in highly competitive neighborhoods, featuring your listings and having a fast response rate to incoming leads are your best ways to stand out.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU If you have a listing in a lower competition neighborhood, you can allocate fewer credits towards reposting/featuring it as it will naturally rank higher in the search results. Instead, allocate the credits you’ve saved to neighborhoods in more competitive areas.

In the example below, we would recommend allocating more credits from listings advertised in Bed-Stuy to listings in Battery Park City, as Battery Park is much more competitive than Bed-Stuy.

Data is drawn from the last 30 days.

Click to view the report.

Our bread and butter: rental data.

This month, we released our most recent data study to track the trend of one-bedroom rentals along 400+ MTA subway stations. Our report paints a picture of how the landscape has shifted in the last year and may be helpful when walking through potential neighborhoods for clients.

This year, the study found that rents increased at 91% of subway stations this year, while only 4% saw decreases. This is a notable difference from last year that RentHop attributes partially to a turnover freeze of lower-priced listings getting snapped up and held.

Read the full study here