There are three ways to show a rental unit. Individual appointments, where you meet one household at a time. Block showings, where you book back-to-back slots inside a single window. And an open house, where you post a two or three hour window and let people arrive when they like.
Most landlords pick one out of habit and run it on every unit. It is a real decision, and for an occupied unit the entry rules narrow your options before anything else does.
If the unit is occupied, the entry rules decide first
You cannot run a format your province does not allow. Every province requires notice, and the shape of that notice is what makes a block cheap and scattered appointments expensive.
Ontario. Section 27 of the Residential Tenancies Act requires written notice at least 24 hours ahead, and that notice has to specify the date, the time and the reason for entering. Entry runs between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm. One exception matters here: section 26(3) lets you enter to show the unit to a prospective tenant without written notice once you or the tenant has given a notice of termination, or the two of you have agreed to end the tenancy. You still have to make a reasonable effort to inform the tenant before you enter, and you are still held to the 8:00 am to 8:00 pm window. The Landlord and Tenant Board's Interpretation Guideline 6 sets out both rules, and adds one worth reading twice: you are responsible for an illegal entry committed by your real estate salesperson or any other agent acting for you.
British Columbia. Section 29 of the Residential Tenancy Act has no equivalent exception. Written notice runs at least 24 hours and not more than 30 days before the entry, has to state a purpose that is reasonable, and has to state the date and the time of entry. The window is 8:00 am to 9:00 pm unless the tenant agrees otherwise. Five viewings on five afternoons is five notices, each naming its own time.
Alberta. Notice is served at least 24 hours before entry and states the reason, the date and the time, with entry between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm. Showing the premises to prospective tenants only becomes available in the last month of a fixed term tenancy, or any time after a periodic tenancy has been terminated by either side. The Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta has the requirements in plain language.
Two things follow from that. In Ontario, once a notice of termination exists, individual appointments stop being paperwork and the whole menu opens up. In BC and Alberta, and in Ontario before any notice exists, every separate appointment carries its own written notice with its own stated time, which pushes you hard toward one block. Where you can, get the tenant's agreement to a window in writing and keep it. A tenant who said yes to Saturday afternoon in a text you saved is worth more to you than a technically valid notice they resented.
If the unit is vacant, the numbers decide
A vacant unit trades the legal constraint for an arithmetic one. Blocks and open houses need attendance to work, and the count that matters is confirmed viewers, not total inquiries. An open house with two people in it reads as a unit nobody wants, which is the opposite of the effect you were buying. If you cannot fill most of your slots, book individually and stop worrying about efficiency.
Four questions that settle the format
- Is the unit occupied? If yes, and you are not in Ontario with a termination notice in hand, default to a single block and one notice.
- How many confirmed viewers do you have? Under a handful, book them one at a time. Enough to fill a window, run a block. Enough to overflow it, run an open house.
- Do you need to read the people, or only show the room? An individual appointment is the only format where you get an uninterrupted conversation. If the unit needs explaining, or the tenancy has conditions you want to raise face to face, do not put yourself in a room with eleven people at once.
- How many near-identical units are you filling? One scattered-site house is a viewing. Eight matching units in one building is a marketing event, and an open house borrows the energy of the crowd. A single house does not have a crowd to borrow.
Where each format fails
Individual appointments fail on your calendar. Every no-show costs a round trip, and no-shows land heaviest on scattered-site portfolios where the units are twenty minutes apart. Confirm the morning of, and give people a reason to confirm back.
Block showings fail on the first late arrival. One person running fifteen minutes behind eats into the next slot and every slot after it, so build the buffer in from the start and hold the schedule rather than the guest.
Open houses fail on control. You do not know who is inside, you cannot watch every room, and in an occupied unit those are someone's belongings in a home they still live in. Two people on site is the minimum. You will also leave with a list of names and no read on any of them, because nobody had a private conversation with you.
Decide the follow-up before you decide the format
The format sets your workload after the showing, and that is the part landlords underestimate. Ten individual appointments produce ten conversations you have already had. One open house produces twenty names you know nothing about, and the ones who came first are already looking elsewhere by the time you work down the list.
So pick the format, then pick the exit. Have the application ready to hand over in the room. Ask everyone the same closing question before they leave, something as plain as whether they want the unit and when they could move. Write the answer down while you are standing there. The point of a format is not the hour you save on the day, it is how quickly you can rank the people who came.
Then work backwards from the vacancy date. If the unit is occupied and you are showing during notice, the showing schedule and the turnover work are competing for the same weeks, and the format you chose is what decides whether they collide.