Tips for Leasing Your Property - Making Your Listing Appealing
Looking to lease a room or a property or have you already been listing and not getting many enquiries? Try these tips and tricks to help you make your listing more appealing to students seeking accommodation.
- Add lots of photos! Students like to see photos of the accommodation (bedrooms, shared areas, bathroom, kitchen, the building, yard etc). If you are advertising a property with no furniture, all photos must show the rooms empty. If advertising a room with furniture for the student then please have the furniture in the photo you upload.
- Pricing: Remember to keep the weekly price down - the more affordable your property, the more students will be inclined to take your property!
- Inclusions:
- You may want to consider adding in electricity and other utilities as well as internet into the weekly price. One price is a lot easier than paying periodically when bills arrive. Just make sure you divide the amount between each person residing in the house evenly to keep it fair and equitable for everyone.
- Make sure the property has all basic requirements required by NSW Fair Trading such as blinds or curtains on all windows for privacy, shower curtains / screens in bathrooms, smoke alarm detectors that are working and compliant, doors on bedrooms ect
Remember: it is illegal to charge a 'bond' for utilities, and if you are looking to charge for water, you will need to check if this is possible to do with the Tenant's Union of NSW - otherwise you could find yourself in hot water!
- Information: Put as much information in your listing as possible - As this is a great way to cut down unnecessary enquiries. Students like to know (if applicable) who they are sharing with, how much bills are, if there is anything included in the weekly price (eg internet) ect.
- Rules: It is common for providers to enforce lots of rules on their prospective housemates. While the no drugs, alcohol and parties rule is extremely fair & justified, you may want to consider not enforcing rules such as 'only allowed to wash clothing once per week', 'only use of kitchen before 9pm each night allowed', etc. As these rules, however innocent they may seem, can be offensive to some students as many cultures require different uses of facilities in a property for varying reasons.
- Watch your netiquette! Netiquette is the social and moral code of internet use. There are ten common rules surrounding netiquette (such as typing in uppercase, which is construed as yelling). As our society is now largely influenced by and communication very much based on the internet and social media, these simple rules are important. For more in-depth information on netiquette, click here. UOW also has its own netiquette guide which you can find here.