In this article:
- Loss Leader Pricing Strategy
- Professional photos are an absolute MUST
- Virtual staging for your photos
- Make sure all aesthetic maintenance is done before you hit the market
- Advertise on multiple sites
- Pay for premium ads
- If you need to drop your price, do so in $25 dollar increments
- When you have an application, act on it fast
- Don’t be against pets
- Be proactive in communication!
Renting your property quickly in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney has never been tougher than it is today. In the last 3 years, the market has slowed, and this was compounded even further since March 2020.
Many British and Irish tenants have left the area, and many Aussie’s originally from other parts of New South Wales have left and are no longer looking to move as they might have before. Vacancy rates have not been this high for a long time.
But fear not! There are still the right tenants out there and you can find them quickly, with the following surprising tips.
1. Loss Leader Pricing Strategy
This strategy of pricing is employed predominantly by supermarkets. They sell their products individually below their cost price – with the mindset that everyone will buy through them, and buy a bigger quantity of items overall which brings their profits back up. Imagine doing a bulk buying run in Costco!
I’m not suggesting you deliberately negatively gear your property, but being the lowest-priced option on the market is a very quick way to get your property rented. And the best thing about rent is that you are not stuck with it forever. Set a 6 or 12-month lease term and do a rent review once it’s getting close – if the market has improved, then negotiate a price increase.
2. Professional photos are an absolute MUST
The way to get noticed is to have excellent photos on your listing. If you’re not convinced already, try putting yourself in the shoes of your prospective tenants. If you are scrolling through the raft of potential options, and you see a property with grainy, blurred photos of random angles of walls, complete with flash in the mirror or windows, you’re probably going to keep scrolling!
Professional photos help your property present well and catch the eye. The more you can catch the eye, the more likely you are to rent your property fast.
3. Virtual staging for your photos
Whether there’s furniture in your professional photos or not, pay for digital staging in your photos. You can change a rainy day into a sunny day, edit power lines out of the kitchen window out, and add furniture into an otherwise empty room.
This is vital to allow prospective tenants to envisage themselves living in the property, which adds emotion to their decision – and the more they feel it, the quicker they will want to snap up the property for themselves.
The best thing about all of this is that staged photos are relatively cheap – and only 2-3 are realistically needed per listing. You may also want to look into setting up a way for tenants to do a virtual tour – not least with the current climate in mind.
4. Make sure all aesthetic maintenance is done before you hit the market
“You can only make a first impression once”. This is true in most cases, but in real estate, you have 2 chances to make a first impression. You have the photos and the listing online, and then you have the open home when your prospective tenants come through and see your property in person.
Whilst getting the photos perfect is massive for the first impression, it is absolutely paramount that your aesthetic maintenance works are done by the first open home. When prospects are coming through, you want to make sure that they are blown away by the care put into your property!
5. Advertise on multiple sites
Advertising your Eastern Suburbs property is easy. Everyone uses realestate.com.au or domain.com.au, right? Not necessarily. Tenants are looking in a variety of places, from Facebook Marketplace to GumTree, to Flatmate finder, and even on overseas websites like rightmove.co.uk or Zillow.
You need to cast your net wide because you never know where the best tenant will come from – and if you want to rent your property quickly, you need to tap into as many possible avenues as you can. Whilst in general, domain.com.au is the most popular for Eastern Suburbs’ born and bred tenants, it only accounts for 70%-80% of enquiries. The other 20%-30% could make the difference between finding a tenant this week or next week.
6. Pay for premium ads
Most of the websites you can advertise on are relatively cost effective – with the most expensive typically being about $100 or so. Most of the ad placements are fairly uniform and not particularly standout. However, you can give yours a boost by paying for the premium spot.
What happens here is that your ad size increases, as well as being featured at the top of the search results for longer. This will help to keep yours in the eyesight of prospective tenants, ultimately, resulting in more clicks and more inspections – making it easier to attract a tenant faster.
Essentially, if you want to lease fast, embrace the fact that it is a race to the top. Picture a peacock – the brightest and most eye-catching tend to get the female attention, and it’s the same in finding a tenant!
7. If you need to drop your price, do so in $25 dollar increments
The best search results hack to know for the major real estate websites is that their price filters are done every $25. This means that if you are not getting much luck in your first week at, say, $750 per week, the smallest price drop you should do is to $725.
You need your property to show up in as many search results as possible. Dropping from $750 to $740 isn’t going to have the property show up in any more search results at all. Don’t be scared – get the attention on your property, negotiate the price from there and then you can always look at a rent increase in the future.
8. When you have an application, act on it fast
When tenants are looking at rentals, they aren’t just looking at one at a time, especially in the Eastern Suburbs. Tenants usually look through on average 5-7 properties on a Saturday and apply for 3 of them. This means they are likely to go with the best or fastest one that comes back to them.
There was a time in the Eastern Suburbs between 2011-2018 when you could basically take your time and your pick from 10-12 different applicants. However, in this market, the average number of applicants has fallen. If you’re using an agent, and they come to you with the application for your approval on a Monday lunchtime, you should aim to give the answer within a couple of hours at the most, otherwise, the tenant may have found somewhere else.
9. Don’t be against pets
In this day and age pets are seen as part of the family in Australia, with 63% of all households having a pet. And whilst it’s unlikely, unless you’re in a small minority of relatively heartless landlords, that a tenant with a baby or young child would have their application rejected, we still seem to have an aversion to approving renters with pets.
These days everyone in the Eastern Suburbs, on the Bondi to Coogee walk has a dog! So long as you don’t have strata by-law restrictions, allowing pets will help you get your property rented quickly. If the pet in question is a cat, they generally don’t leave as much of an impact on the property as well so it should be much easier to approve as well.
10. Be proactive in communication!
There is some overlap with point number 9 here. But essentially it’s getting its own spot because it’s important. If you use a great Eastern Suburbs rental agent like Charlotte Peterswald, when they ask you for instructions or permission to drop the rental price, the longer you wait to answer, the less likely you will find a tenant.
Likewise, if you are self-managed, and your prospective tenant has a question or makes an enquiry on your property, the faster you can get back to them, the faster you get back to them, the faster you can rent out your property!
Seems simple, but many people find it much harder in practice!
Summary
So in short, the 10 ways to rent your property quickly are:
- Loss leader price strategy
- Professional photography
- Virtually staged photos
- Complete all aesthetic maintenance
- Advertise in multiple avenues
- Premium ads
- $25 pricing increments
- Respond to applications very quickly
- Be open to pets
- Quick, proactive communications
Now that you have found the 10 ways to rent your property quickly in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, you can be ready and prepared to minimise your vacancy! If you are having trouble with any of the above, getting a top-quality service level agency like Charlotte Peterswald to help you is a good idea.
Renting your property quickly can save you money, stress and of course time. The savvy investor knows that getting tenants in fast is the best way to maximise your rental returns. Don’t wait for things to happen with your property, get on the front foot with the above and make them happen!
Next, here are 15 tips to find the best tenants for your rental property in Eastern Suburbs Sydney.
