The Question Has Not Gone Away

Virtual showings went from novelty to necessity during the pandemic, and they have never fully gone back to being optional. Some Ontario landlords swear by them. Others tried them once, got burned by a tenant who looked great on video and turned out to be a nightmare in person, and never looked back. So where does that leave you as a landlord trying to fill a vacancy in Belleville, Trenton, Cobourg, or anywhere else across Central Ontario?

The honest answer is that it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Virtual showings are not a universal upgrade or a universal mistake. They are a tool, and like any tool, their value comes down to how and when you use them. This guide focuses on the decision itself: should you offer virtual showings at all, and what factors should drive that choice?

At Blue Anchor Property Management, we cover Oshawa to Belleville, with properties as far north as Campbellford and down into Picton. We have watched the applicant pool shift considerably over the past few years, and we have formed clear views on when virtual showings earn their place in a leasing process and when they create more problems than they solve.

What Has Actually Changed in the Rental Market

The Ontario rental market today looks meaningfully different from even a few years ago. Affordability pressures have pushed renters out of the GTA and into smaller cities like Belleville and Trenton. More applicants are relocating from Toronto, Hamilton, or out of province, and those renters often cannot physically visit a property before committing to a move. That is a real shift in the applicant pool, and it matters when you are thinking about how to run showings.

At the same time, every week a unit sits empty is money that cannot be recovered. If offering a virtual showing option means you attract a serious out-of-town applicant two weeks earlier than you otherwise would, that has real dollar value attached to it. Vacancy cost is one of the most underappreciated drains on rental income, and shortening the gap between tenancies is one of the clearest ways to protect your return. Our post on the true cost of vacancy covers that math in detail.

Relocating professionals, remote workers, military members posted to CFB Trenton, and students moving to smaller Ontario cities are increasingly comfortable making rental decisions based on video tours combined with strong documentation. Ignoring that segment of the market means leaving qualified applicants on the table.

The Case For Offering Virtual Showings

The strongest argument for offering virtual showings is access. When you limit showings to in-person only, you are drawing from a local pool. When you add a virtual option, you open the door to anyone in Ontario, or anywhere in Canada, who is planning a move. For a well-maintained property in Belleville or Cobourg, that expanded reach can meaningfully shorten your vacancy period.

There is also a filtering benefit that gets overlooked. A prospective tenant who takes the time to book a virtual showing, shows up on time, asks thoughtful questions, and follows up with a completed application is demonstrating exactly the kind of organized, communicative behaviour you want in a long-term tenant. The format itself acts as a soft filter. Someone who cannot manage a 20-minute video call is unlikely to be a model tenant when it comes to reporting maintenance issues or responding to lease renewal notices.

Virtual showings also protect your time. We have seen landlords spend entire Saturdays driving between properties for back-to-back showings, only to have half the applicants not show up. A virtual showing eliminates travel time entirely and makes it easier to schedule multiple appointments in a single afternoon without leaving your desk.

From a practical standpoint, virtual showings pair well with a thorough tenant screening process. A virtual showing is never a substitute for proper credit checks, income verification, and reference calls. It is one step in a larger process, not the whole process. Our post on tenant screening tips for Ontario landlords walks through what that process should look like.

The Case Against Virtual Showings as Your Default

Virtual showings have real limitations that Ontario landlords need to take seriously. The most significant is that video does not capture everything. A prospective tenant cannot smell a musty basement, feel whether the windows are drafty, or notice that the upstairs neighbour is loud on a Tuesday afternoon. Those are things that matter to tenants, and when they move in and discover them for the first time, you are starting the tenancy on a sour note.

There is also a verification problem. You cannot confirm who is actually on the other end of a video call. A well-presented applicant on screen could be presenting a very different living situation than what they are describing. AI-generated fraud in rental applications is a growing concern in Ontario, and virtual-only processes make it easier for bad actors to misrepresent themselves. This is not a reason to refuse virtual showings entirely, but it is a reason to treat them as a preliminary step rather than a final one. Any serious applicant who passes a virtual showing and a screening check should still be expected to visit the property in person before signing a lease, if at all possible.

For landlords managing properties in smaller communities like Picton or Trenton, the local applicant pool is still large enough that in-person showings remain the norm. Offering virtual showings as an add-on makes sense. Replacing in-person showings entirely with virtual ones in a local market can actually signal to nearby applicants that you are not particularly invested in showing the property properly.

It is also worth noting that virtual showings require some setup. You need decent lighting, a stable internet connection, a phone or camera that captures the space well, and the ability to walk someone through a property while answering questions in real time. For landlords who are not comfortable with that format, a poorly executed virtual showing can do more harm than no virtual showing at all.

A Practical Framework for Deciding

Rather than treating virtual showings as always on or always off, think about the decision in terms of your specific vacancy. Ask yourself these questions before you set your showing policy for a given unit.

• Who is your most likely applicant? If you are listing a two-bedroom in Belleville near the hospital and you expect local healthcare workers to apply, in-person showings will serve you well. If you are listing a unit in Oshawa and you expect applicants from across the GTA, a virtual option is worth offering.
• How long can you afford to wait? The longer a unit sits, the more a virtual showing that attracts an out-of-town applicant is worth. If you have a short window before a vacancy becomes costly, broadening your reach makes sense.
• Is your property easy to show remotely? A bright, open-concept unit with good natural light translates well to video. A basement apartment with low ceilings and small windows may look worse on screen than it does in person, and you may be screening out applicants who would have liked it had they visited.
• Do you have a process for following up? A virtual showing without a clear next step is a wasted effort. You need to know in advance how you will move from a virtual showing to an application, a screening check, and ideally an in-person visit before lease signing.

To illustrate: imagine a landlord with a vacant two-bedroom in Belleville who lists in late October. Local foot traffic slows in winter. Adding a virtual showing option and promoting the listing to out-of-town platforms could attract a relocating professional who wants to secure housing before a January start date. That applicant books a virtual showing, submits a complete application with employment confirmation, passes screening, and arranges a brief in-person visit before signing. The landlord fills the unit two weeks faster than they would have with in-person-only showings. That is an illustrative example, but it reflects a pattern we see regularly at Blue Anchor.

How Bill 60 Changes the Urgency Around Vacancy

One thing that has shifted the calculus on vacancy speed is Bill 60, the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, which received Royal Assent on November 27, 2025. Effective September 21, 2026, the N4 notice period for non-payment of rent was shortened from 14 days to 7 days, and a written persistent late payment test was introduced for N8 applications. These are meaningful changes for landlords, but they do not reduce the importance of finding the right tenant in the first place. A faster eviction process is cold comfort if you are cycling through problem tenancies. Getting placement right the first time remains the priority, and anything that expands your applicant pool without compromising your screening standards is worth considering.

If you want a full breakdown of what Bill 60 means for your day-to-day operations, our post on Ontario eviction rule changes in 2026 covers the details.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I require an in-person visit before a tenant signs a lease?

Yes. Nothing in the Residential Tenancies Act prevents you from making an in-person visit a condition of your leasing process. You cannot discriminate against applicants based on protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code, but requiring that a prospective tenant view the unit in person before signing is a reasonable and legally defensible practice. We recommend it as a standard step for any applicant who initially views a unit virtually.

What if an applicant says they cannot visit in person before moving in?

This happens, particularly with military postings, international relocations, or applicants moving from distant cities. In those cases, you can accept a virtual showing as the primary viewing, but you should be especially thorough with your screening documentation. Verified employment letters, credit reports, landlord references, and a video call where you can ask direct questions all become more important when you cannot meet someone face to face. Some landlords in this situation also ask a trusted local contact of the applicant to do a brief in-person walkthrough on their behalf.

Does offering virtual showings attract lower-quality applicants?

Not inherently, but the format does not filter applicants the way an in-person showing does. Someone who shows up to an in-person showing has already invested time and travel. A virtual showing has a lower barrier to entry, which means you may get more inquiries but need to be more deliberate about moving only serious applicants forward. A short pre-screening call or written questionnaire before booking a virtual showing can help you focus your time on applicants who are genuinely ready to commit.

Are self-showings a better alternative to virtual showings?

Self-showings, where a prospective tenant accesses the unit independently using a lockbox or access code, are a separate option worth understanding. They allow in-person access without requiring the landlord to be present, which solves the scheduling problem without the limitations of video. We have written separately about why self-showings can be a safer option in certain situations. The right choice depends on your property, your market, and your comfort level with each format.

Should I offer virtual showings for every vacancy, or only some?

We recommend treating it as a vacancy-by-vacancy decision rather than a blanket policy. A unit in a high-demand area with strong local interest may not need virtual showings at all. A unit that has been sitting for more than two weeks, or a property that appeals to out-of-town applicants, is a good candidate for adding a virtual option. Flexibility in your approach is more useful than a rigid rule in either direction.

Blue Anchor manages rentals in Belleville and the surrounding area. See our Belleville property management page and our tenant placement service.

The Bottom Line

Virtual showings are a legitimate part of a modern leasing process, but they work best as a complement to in-person showings rather than a replacement for them. Used thoughtfully, they expand your applicant pool, save you time, and can meaningfully reduce vacancy days. Used carelessly, they create verification gaps and can attract applicants who are not genuinely ready to commit.

At Blue Anchor Property Management, we build our leasing process around what actually produces good long-term tenancies, not what is easiest in the short term. If you are managing properties across Central Ontario and want to talk through how we handle showings, screening, and placement, we would be glad to walk you through our approach. Visit our pricing page to see what our management services include, or reach out directly to start a conversation.