A new year means a new beginning for many tenancies throughout Wellington. As students begin to flow back into Wellington looking for rental properties landlords once again face the decision on whether or not they should focus on the tenant market when advertising their property.
Advantages Of Students As Tenants
More Likely To Find Tenants
Tenants are flooding back into Wellington, creating a higher demand for rental properties than other tenant groups during this time of the year. Focusing on the student market allows more opportunity for your property to be tenanted.
Don’t Believe The Myth
While some students occasionally have loud parties, over the years we’ve found the vast majority of student tenants prefer to quietly enjoy the property, are reliable, pay rent on time, and leave the property in a fit condition to re-let without any additional maintenance or cleaning, making them an ideal tenant market for your Wellington rental property.
They Can Help Limit Future Vacancies
Students can be a great source of tenant referrals in the future for landlords, making life easier when the tenancy ends by helping you avoiding long vacancy periods and save time advertising the property.
Advice For Marketing Towards Students
Online Is The Way To Go
The more online exposure your rental property has the better. Don’t just rely on Trade Me, consider posting on Facebook pages like ‘Wellington Rental Properties’ and ‘Flatmates Wanted Wellington’ to maximise exposure to the student market. At Quinovic Kent Terrace we have a database of approximately 2,000 tenants we email our listings to each week, giving tremendous advantage over listings on Trade Me.
Bullet Points Are Best
With so many properties advertised, it’s hard to get attention, let alone hold onto it.
Many students will only glance at your listing at first and won’t bother reading long paragraphs. To get your selling points across effectively, bullet point brief sentences detailing the main selling points of the rental property and avoid vague or ambiguous descriptions. When creating the rental listing, keep the target audience in mind. Include information about the property, features, local amenities and neighbourhood that would interest students.
Take Great Photos
Create a great first impression with great property photos! Make sure you take photos of the exterior and all the rooms, not just the bedrooms and kitchen, as each room has its own selling point and tenants like to know what to expect before viewings. Tenants naturally focus on seeing things they noticed in the photos during viewings - if the room is dark and shadowy in the photos then that’s what tenants will look for during the viewing to confirm what they know and are concerned about. Try providing photos that show bright and sunny rooms to establish a positive feeling towards the property and attract more tenants to viewings.
Bottom-Line
In our experience, most students are great, reliable tenants, making them an attractive and profitable market. Wellington landlords should strongly consider when advertising their property and accepting applications. We deal with many students as tenants and through careful management the tenancy runs smoothly.
Quinovic Wellington Property Managers
Article written: January 2017
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