Apartment Rentals at a HAULT?

I have a few town homes that I rent out. Up until recently I couldn't keep people out of them. They were always full and on top of that, I had a waiting list. About a week ago, people just stopped. No one comes by to see them anymore. No one rents. I find this odd that it happened so abruptly though. It just seem that one day BAM, and the apartment rental market got blown apart.

Has anyone else noticed a decrease in interest? Do you think it's just a bump in the economy?

One reason can be the outbreak of free rent a homes for newbies people build to draw traffic in their land, clubs and shops, so i guess the demand for ones you have to pay for has decreased...

i have noticed this in almost every aspect of second life. bingo will be floating room only for a few weeks, then hardly attended for the next few. every month some industry such as clothing, vehicle or av manufacturers will note that sales have been far below par for a while.

the good news is that everything cycles back up. second life industry mimics real life industry in some ways. while we don't have massive production or inventory costs, we do pay money and time for development; and we do have to suffer lean times for good.

if your actually, really working to provide nice homes and good service for your customers, you're far ahead of the loads of get-rich-quickers that believe they can just slap up a few cubes, collect money then ignore their tenents. sit tight; it'll roll around. next time the place has a waiting list, remember to save for the next rainy day.

I'm looking for a place to rent because I can't own land (and WONT until we see more stability) but with the recent stipend cap I can't afford much. So I just wander and collect furniture.

We just rented a place a few days ago. My biggest concern was renting from someone that I know (or am pretty sure) won't screw me over. I've read all the horror stories about people selling land that other people are renting from them without any sort of notice and I'd be furious if that happened to me. So.. I am renting from a friend.

I don't know why people suddenly stopped renting from you. Are the horror stories any more abundant than usual? Maybe someone who doesn't like you started rumors or something. I wouldn't put it past some of the people I see on these forums. Also, the decreased stipends might play a part. I would guess that some people are used to paying rental fees with their stipend and not having to actually do any work to make money to rent. Now, people can't afford high rental fees anymore. Especially people without tier.

In any case, I would just wait it out. Or try lowering your prices. Or both.

I too have been disgusted in the horror stories of apartment renting. I know I would never do such a thing to my tenants. I do agree with the theories though. Market slump. To tell you the truth, I don't even think that lowering my price would help much because I'm not even getting people out to the location to look at them.

I really hope that I didn't offend anyone to the point that they would be passing on bad publicity about my facilities.

People are going to continue thinking for a while that rental rates are the same as they have been. It's natural to expect that. I'd just lower the rates and wait. Couldn't hurt.