There's an old saying: "You can pay a lot of school fees (and waist time and money) by trying to do it yourself, or you can ask a professional".
Don't believe us yet? Try advertising your rental property on five (yes, 5!) different websites in New Zealand for less than $207. Because that's what we can do for you if you let Rent Square manage your property for you.
We know that every landlord has their own processes when advertising their rentals and looking for tenants. But is the advertisement effective? Is it cost effective? Is the writeup of high quality? What about quality photos? And what to do if you receive applications?
Rent Square has all the systems in place for best practice to finding great tenants for you. Its our goal to give you a great landlord experience.
When should you start advertising?
We take many external factors into consideration. Generally, you need to allow 4-6 weeks to find a tenant (from creating an advertisement to the tenant moving in). In some circumstances, that timeframe is shorter or longer.
Need help setting up a listing?
Rent Square understands the fine art of creating a listing for a vacant property. More importantly, we know how to get the right tenants into your property. Read more about how we help property owners here.
Once the listing is paid for and goes live, what should you do with enquiries?
Once the property is advertised, the applicants can enquire about your property on any site it is advertised on. This is where it could become overwhelming and confusing quickly.
On average, we receive more than 1,400 views per advertisement. Rent Square collate all enquiries in one place and do all communication with your potential tenants from one system. We respond swiftly and effectively to potential tenants. Where applicable we reach out to applicants by phone or email.
By choosing to let Rent Square manage your property, allows us to communicate via our advanced systems, all while we keep your contact details private until you're ready to share them.
How quickly should you reply?
We generally think that in order to keep things moving and not wasting anyone’s time, it’s good to keep applicants updated early if they’re not suitable. That's the reason we introduced a “soft-decline” process in our system.
The soft-decline feature sends a polite message letting people know they haven’t made the shortlist, so they can continue looking for other places. Also, if we think someone is perfect for your rental, we reply to them quickly, as it's likely they're looking at other properties.
Do we ask tenants to complete applications first or wait until after the viewing?
As landlord you need to know the Residential Tenancies Act - or you can make use of professionals like Rent Square.
The Privacy Commissioner's guidelines for NZ landlords state that when organising viewings, landlords should only collect tenants’ names and contact information. The option to complete an application can be made available for tenants, but they shouldn't be required to do so.
That is why in most cases, we run open homes, show the property to as many interested parties as possible, and then ask people to apply if they’re interested. Then we shortlist and select the one to rent the property to.
Do we run viewing for a number of times?
This is entirely up to the response we getting. If we have excellent candidates on the first day that we’re happy to run with, nothing stops us from proceeding with them. We can then ask them to complete applications, and run comprehensive checks while the property is still on the market.
Do you need to run tenant checks on all the shortlisted applicants?
Once we’ve selected the “one” candidate, we present them to you by email. Once accepted by you, you may want us to run tenant checks. Not all property owners do this, while some insurance companies require this step. So it’s up to you if you want to order them. We recommend that you tenant check all adults who will be renting the property from you. Rent Square can also do this for you.
What should you do once you've made your selection?
Once the tenant checks back as good and we’re happy with the person chosen, we prepare the tenancy paperwork. This is a whole process in itself!
Once the paperwork is signed, and money (like the bond and first week's rent) is collected, we mark the listing as "rented". On our system this will send a notification to all the other interested parties letting them know the property is no longer available.
See, we make it easy on you. :) So, why don't you give Rent Square the opportunity to manage your rental property? Get in touch today.
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