Apartments for Rent Made Easy

Turning up the Heat on Fire Safety in Your Rental Apartment

An astonishing number of Canadians in rental apartments across the country are affected every year in fires, whether accidental or electrical. During 2009 Toronto Fire Services responded to 142,014 calls with 278,271 vehicle responses. The causes range from smoking, appliances, cooking, candles, lamps and garbage disposal to electrical issues within the building complex. However, no matter what the cause, the impact on both renters and property management can be devastating.

Avoiding fires and fire damage in your rental complex is possible—it just requires some thoughtfulness and planning on your part. By taking just a few precautionary steps, you can protect yourself, your family and other renters in your apartment building.

First, it’s important for apartment renters to maintain open levels of communication with the management. Find out about your building’s fire safety features by asking your building manager or superintendent about how the property is protected in the event of a fire. Oftentimes, your move-in package will contain information of this nature, including locations of alarms, sprinklers, emergency exits and fire extinguishers. Apartment buildings higher than 12 storeys must have a voice communication system.

A key feature to look for inside your rental unit is whether there is at least one working smoke alarm (typically, alarms will have a test button). The Ontario Fire Code stipulates that every home must have one working smoke alarm. Ideally, however, you should have one in every room in your unit with the exception of kitchens, bathrooms and closets.

According to the City of Toronto’s Safety and Fire Prevention Services, most fatal fires happen at night when people are sleeping. This means that a working smoke alarm will detect smoke and alert you accordingly. Just be sure to change the batteries regularly. If the alarm is more than five to 10 years old, it’s time for a new one. Finally, never disable the smoke alarm in your apartment. If you find that steam from your shower or proximity to the kitchen is tripping the alarm, consult with your building’s management on re-locating it.

As fires spread quickly leaving apartment renters little time to act, this forward-thinking mentality is of the essence—even if you’re renting in a lower-level or basement apartment unit. Ask yourself the following questions:

What is my escape route?

What if my main escape route is blocked by smoke?

Do I have an alternate escape route if my primary route is blocked by fire or smoke?

Be prepared with at least two escape routes that do not include the elevator.  Having an escape route might be the difference between life and death for you and your family.

Did you know that most people die from smoke inhalation rather than the fire itself? This is why having a roll of duct tape, which is available at hardware stores, is absolutely necessary as it can block smoke from entering your apartment through door cracks, vents and other openings.

Here are some other tips to consider:

Never smoke in bed. If possible, always smoke outside and ensure that your cigarette is fully extinguished on completion. When in doubt, douse them in water.

Examine electrical outlets regularly. If a cord is warm or a plug is blackened, contact your apartment building’s management or an electrician.

Never leave items cooking on a stove unattended.

Ensure candles are fully extinguished and trim their wicks if they are producing large flames.

Keep lamps a safe distance from curtains and heating sources.

Never dispose of burning materials in the garbage disposal.

Consider obtaining tenant’s insurance for damage to your belongings and, where applicable, the belongings of others and the rental property.

Fires in both highrise and lowrise apartment buildings can happen at any moment, which is why you must always have a fire safety plan. Speak to your landlord or local fire department for tips on how to keep you and your family safe.

The RentSeeker.ca Team

“Apartments for Rent Made Easy”

If you are just beginning to search for an apartment for rent, you might be realizing that it is not as easy as it seemed. What started off as a simple, “Oh we just need a 2 bedroom next to the subway”, often becomes a lot more complex as the moving date looms nearer.

Details such as the property manager / property management company, its reputation, the neighbours you’ll be living next to for the foreseeable future and many other details, are all key issues that should be considered as you begin your apartment search.

Other moving considerations could include; new appliances, swimming pools, the location of the laundry room, other amenities, and many other small details that can make your next apartment either the place you love or hate.

With this in mind, RentSeeker .ca features a list of the top five things to keep in mind when renting an apartment in Toronto or anywhere throughout Canada & how we integrate these features to help renters gather as much information and research prior to renting a new apartment.

1) Floor Plans — 2D & 3D:

When you are searching the internet for a new apartment, it is often very helpful to see the floor plan prior. Everything in your apartment can be changed around except for the layout of your apartment, so make sure your comfortable with it. RentSeeker .ca features 2D & 3D  floor plans of every listing in its portfolio*.

(*if made available by the landlord)

Rentseeker .ca has introduced a new feature which some landlords are quickly taking advantage of, a 3D floor plan. This gives you, the renter a tremendous advantage, to clearly see the layout of the room and plan where to place your furniture.

Read the rest of this entry » «Apartment Renting Made Easy»

RentSeeker.ca Syndication

With constant turnover in the rental market, keeping ahead of tenant loss is the key to creating a property management portfolio with few to no vacancies. Oftentimes, filling your apartments for rent comes down to some very basic marketing strategies.

As the Internet grows, marketing has become more web-based for a variety of reasons, most notably, cost effectiveness. As a result, many landlords have allocated marketing dollars to online advertising forums, which generate exposure and, as a result, boost their company’s online visibility.

There are two ways to list or market properties online. Firstly, classifieds, like Kijiji, Craigslist, Backpage, OLX, and Oodle, are valuable when marketing a rental property as need be, which is a strategic way of targeting a specific building for vacancy problems. Bear in mind, though, that these websites are extremely time-consuming (requiring constant re-posting) and time-sensitive (popular listing types lose rank within hours of posting).

On the other hand, an ILS (internet listing site) like RentSeeker.ca, syndicates regularly with popular classifieds, providing the targeted, current and relevant search results of a classified—with benefits: Rental apartment search websites can be used as a tactic to enhance brand recognition, namely because they add multi-channel marketing to the equation.

RentSeeker.ca, for instance, leverages social media marketing tools to maximize a landlord’s online presence through the use of networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Digg, thereby grabbing the attention of a prospective resident on a variety of levels.

In addition to the traditional “suite type, amenities and rent” listing, more and more websites offer entire menus of value-adds that simplify the apartment hunting process. For instance, RentSeeker.ca provides renters with one-stop-shop access to entire inventories of available apartments for rent. In addition to providing direct email and telephone access to the landlord, the site also generates videos, floor plans and maps, such as Google Maps and Walkscore, to demonstrate the property’s accessibility and proximity to a variety of amenities, including shopping, schools and public transit.

This unique mix of multi-channel marketing ultimately increases the number of times a property and the brand behind it is viewed. As each property listed contains links directing prospective resident traffic to your website—via social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Digg, as well as videos, floor plans and maps—the advantage of listing an entire portfolio of apartments for rent on an ILS boils down to efficiency.

Listing in bulk with a full-service firm like RentSeeker.ca, is not only efficient as far as time is concerned. As Google indexes websites based on keywords, volume listings is a tactic to drive traffic to your properties on the ILS – and subsequently, your website – without having to compete for keywords in a competitive sphere such as “apartments for rent in Toronto.” So if you’re considering long-term SEO placement and improved Google rankings, listing your properties online in bulk – even in a fortuitous low-vacancy period – will continually drive traffic to your website while archiving inquiries. That means that when a rental unit does become available, filling it is just an email or phone call away.

This blog post was written in collaboration with data from the Marketing and Communications team at (RentSeeker.ca Corporate Sponsor), Greenwin Property Management: offering safe and vibrant rental apartments for all budgets in central and eastern Canada. Read more about apartments for rent, industry news and upcoming events in the community by visiting Greenwin’s blog and news page (www.greenwinpm.com). Join the conversation on Twitter (@GreenwinPM) and Facebook (facebook.com/GreenwinPM).