Page 12 - Welcome Home Magazine September 2021

ATTRACTING QUALITY

TENANTS

As a landlord, you want to protect your investment, but you don’t want your rental unit to remain vacant
for a long period of time, which damages your profit potential. While you might be tempted to rent the
property quickly without regard for tenant quality, renting your unit to unqualified tenants may cause
costly, time-consuming problems down the road. Fortunately, there are ways to minimise dealing with a
risky tenant.

Establish your tenant criteria
Prior to listing a rental or conducting viewings, it’s important to have an idea of what kind of tenant you
want. This helps you narrow your focus and gives our Property Management team a target market to focus
on when it comes to advertising. Consider variables like smoking, pets, minimum income, etc and
mention them to your Property Managers. Knowing your feelings on these will not only help streamline the
process, but can also protect you from accusations of discrimination.

Regular maintenance is key
Another way to attract quality tenants is to perform regular maintenance. This ensures that there is less
to do when it comes to fixing, cleaning and staging the property for a showing and gives potential tenants
peace of mind knowing that the property is in good hands. Additionally, pre-emptive maintenance saves
you both time and money by reducing the chance of things breaking in the long-term. However, when
things do break, be sure to respond quickly as nothing sours the tenant relationship quicker than sluggish
repairs.

Boost value with add-ons

To attract quality tenants, you can use add-ons to broaden your appeal to a more desirable, higher-income
market. These add-ons might include extra storage space or lighting,
built-in wardrobes, stainless steel appliances, air-conditioning, heating and dishwashers.
While these add-ons are an investment, they will boost the
value of the rental property and help you increase
your rental yield in the long-term.

Highlight local amenities
When advertising your property make
sure to note local amenities such as public
transport, parks, schools, supermarkets
and cafés. This helps potential tenants
envision the type of lifestyle they could lead
and shows them that you’re using a helpful
property manager with a solid
understanding of the neighbourhood.
Additionally, it can make quality tenants feel
more at home knowing that the area has all
the creature comforts that they’re used to.

Source: Propertyme 12 ways to attract quality tenants