How to Put Your Rental Listings Online This Afternoon

One afternoon

You don't need to build a website from scratch to have one. With a listings platform, the work is deciding what your site says and getting your properties in, and that fits in an afternoon if you have your material ready. This walks through it using Loftfolio, since that's what we make, but the order works on any platform.

Before you start

Have these ready:

• Your business name, or your own name if you're a landlord
• Your logo, if you have one (PNG or SVG)
• One accent color
• For each property: photos, the price, bedrooms, bathrooms, area, availability date and a short description
• The times over the next couple of weeks when you can show properties

For photos, this checklist covers what to shoot and in which order.

1. Pick a plan and sign up

Starter is $39 a month for one person and up to 25 properties. Pro is $99 for three people and unlimited properties, and Agency is $249 for ten. There's no free plan and no trial, but there's no contract either, and if it isn't for you in the first 30 days, email us and we refund your first payment. The plans side by side.

2. Set your brand

Name, logo, color and typeface. Your address is yourname.loftfolio.com. Your branding is used everywhere on the site: header, listing cards and the application form.

3. Add your first properties

Upload photos with the exterior first, then fill in the price, key facts and description. Publish, and each property gets its own page.

A couple of market notes: a UK listing has material-information fields (price, tenure, council tax band, and the deposit on a letting) to fill in before it's published, and a New Zealand rental can't be published without its rent. Nothing else is built in for other countries, so check what a listing where you work has to state.

4. Look at it on a phone

Open your address on your phone. Check the listing grid, a property page and the application form.

5. Check where inquiries go

Every listing already has an application form. Submit a test application and you'll see it arrive in your pipeline, tied to the property. From there you can ask an applicant for photo ID, proof of income or a reference, which they upload to their application.

6. Publish viewing times

Add the times you're free and set a limit per slot. Applicants book from the listing page, both of you get a confirmation and a reminder the day before by email, and they can cancel from the link in their email.

7. Invite your team (Pro and Agency)

Invite colleagues by email as agents. The owner keeps billing and the public site; agents work the listings and the pipeline. Starter is a single seat.

8. Share the link

Email signature, social profiles, your Google Business Profile, and the reply you send to everyone who texts "is it still available?"

What it doesn't do

No rent collection, no screening, no leases or e-signature, no custom domain yet, and nothing is pushed to the portals. Keep using the tools you have for those. The full list.

If you're a landlord rather than an agency, this page is written for you. Starting a new agency? The launch checklist covers the rest.

→ See the demo agency first

Related: How to rent out your house, step by step.