vacancy

as landlords, this is our fourth time looking for tenants, and our first time when it's taken longer than one showing to lease it. it's got me feeling stressed. i know it's the time of year, and i think that's partly why i'm anxious. we're in the low rental season at the moment. there's a lot of vacancy, so listings need to be competitive. we've had about 10 responses, and done 4.5 viewings (the half being a phone call with an out of town prospective tenant), plus one open house where no one showed up (there were 4 potential tenants interested, but none showed up). because of this being the low season, we've lowered the rent. i'm pretty discouraged. i think people are turned off by it being exclusive. one girl actually asked us to cover the utilities (AND lower the rent to fit her budget) on the bright side, there are rumblings of a 25% cut in hydro costs, but i can't tell people what their utilities MIGHT cost with those changes, since there is no guarantees. 

it seems that regardless of any nice features (wood floors, basement for storage, in-home laundry facilities, etc), size matters most :S yes, the rooms are small, but we lived there as a family of three, and really, the main issues was there was no backyard/play space. 

anyway, it's really hard for me being in this position of waiting. i like to be proactive. and this is just a waiting game. i might make an add and take it to the seniors' centre. maybe instead of a young professional, we should be going after the single, senior and downsizing market. 

i'm not very thick-skinned. this is making me doubt the merits of rental properties.