How will we achieve the top rental for your investment property?

Here’s how we will achieve the top rental for your investment property

We all want to achieve the highest possible rental price in the shortest period for our property.

When a property does not rent quickly most owners immediately blame the property manager for not renting their property.

However, having successfully managed over $1 Billion worth of properties for our clients through our various offices, we’ve found the 3 main factors that will affect how quickly your property leases are:

1. Price
2. Presentation
3. Promotion

Here’s how we will address each of these factors for you:

1. Price

In today’s interconnected and informed world, it is very important to make sure that your property is priced in line with what’s going on in the current local marketplace.

To ensure you achieve the top rental, but minimise your vacancy period, we will provide you with recommended rental based on a Competitive Market Analysis. This is a comprehensive list of all the properties currently on the market that you are competing with for the current pool of tenants, as well as a list of recently leased properties.

Using this information, and just as importantly your property manager’s honest feedback from prospective tenants at inspection, we are able to set a price that is competitive with comparable offerings in the marketplace.

2. Presentation

Another critical factor in achieving the highest possible rental, and renting your property in the shortest possible time, is the presentation of your property.

The fact is, over time properties won’t present as well as they used to.

Sometimes a new coat of paint or new carpet will make a world of difference to a prospective tenant. This is especially important in a highly competitive market, when there are many new properties for lease.

Presentation improvements can lessen vacancy times and avoid lost money in rental decreases. And, remember it’s not just about how your property looks this time around; these presentation improvements will help increase your return on investment year on year.

If there are any presentation improvements we feel you should make, we will let you know and assist you in arranging the work.

3. Promotion

Your property must be promoted in a way that prospective tenants are able to find it. In these technology-friendly times, the old adage “you can’t rent a secret” has never been more true.

In order to maximise the rental you achieve, we need to cast the net as wide as possible to catch as many potential tenants as possible.

Promotion should include:

1. Internet Portals

Today tenants are very tech savvy and most rely solely on the internet to conduct their searches. At Metropole, we advertise your property on the three main property portals plus our own highly trafficked website.

However, if your property is only listed at the bottom of page 8 on the listings, you’re not even in the game! That’s why we always recommend paying extra for a premium listing near the top of the suburb search.

2. Signboard

Many agents don’t even bother with this “old school dinosaur” but it may surprise you that our research of tenants inspecting our properties shows that, even in this tech-friendly age, we still gather just over 10% of our enquiries using this low-tech and incredibly inexpensive method.

People will drive around an area where they are interested in renting. If you don’t have a For Lease sign you’re not in the game.

3. Open for Inspections

At Metropole, we use the latest technology to allow tenants to choose inspection times and be informed by email or SMS of open for inspections. Wherever possible we try to book multiple prospects at the same inspection. This helps to create a sense of competition.

This buzz adds to the perception that this property is priced right and helps avoid lowball “offers” from tenants who may believe they are the only prospect.

The new “drive-by”

In the old days, potential tenants would “drive-by” properties for lease to see if they were interested in them.

Today, tenants still do a drive-by - but on the internet. They make their preliminary decisions on the net and chose to inspect properties or exclude properties based on the quality of the internet marketing.

This means if we get it wrong, people have not even left their computer, yet they have excluded your property.

Photography has never been so critical in effectively marketing your property. Pictures speak a thousand words, meaning amateur quality photographs cost owners money.

That’s why our fee packages include professional photography because this leads to more interest, and in turn reduced vacancy rates.

We regularly update property photos to ensure that the condition of the property is accurately reflected.

Pets

If you have a property that is suitable for pets it is very likely that we will receive applications from tenants with pets.

Don’t stress - we don’t have bad experiences with pets, we only would have bad experiences with bad tenants with pets. Allowing good tenants (we only accept A-Grade Tenants) with pets can make your property more desirable and increase your potential tenant pool.

By considering tenants with pets, it means your property will be suitable for more people. More people mean more applications, which means your property gets rented faster. Being a no-pets owner could cost you money because there are fewer tenants who can rent your property.

Of course, if we receive an application with pets we will consult with you and if you accept the tenancy we will protect you by including a specially written “pet clause” in your lease.

In summary:

Put simply if your property does not lease quickly either your property

1. Is overpriced
2. Badly presented and/or
3. Badly or ineffectively advertised

We will protect your interests by giving you continual market feedback during the letting process and by looking after the property as if it were our own.