New Segment; How Low Can They Go?

For our latest podcast segment, we'll delve into a distinct suburb each week, exploring the rental prices of advertised properties and uncovering just how much they deviate from the market rates. How much money exactly are these Brisbane Investors loosing?

One unlucky investor we found is losing $2600 per year. 

Tune in and discover why common mistakes like outdated photos, lack of floor plans, and unfurnished listings are costing landlords hundreds of dollars each week. We promise you'll gain actionable insights that can turn your under-rented property into a high-yield investment.

I am going to be honest, in this quick episode I scrutinise rental listings in North Lakes, Brisbane, revealing how better marketing strategies could significantly boost rental returns. 

Whether you're an experienced landlord or new to the rental market, this episode is packed with tips to enhance your property management strategy and ensure your listings stand out, direct from Exclusively Managed. Don't miss these essential strategies for boosting your rental income!

If you have any questions or scenarios you would like us to discuss on an upcoming episode, please email samantha.eason@exclusivelymanaged.com.au or visit https://www.exclusivelymanaged.com.au/

Donate to the sleepbus foundation here.
https://www.sleepbus.org/services/sleepbusfund

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Hi, it's Samantha Eason here with Talking Property Management, and today I'm going to trial a new segment where we go through realestatecom or domain and we find properties that have been under-rented and advertised online. We'll pick a suburb in each episode and we'll see exactly where these properties sit on the market. I think this one's going to be pretty interesting because when I had a quick look before, the first property I found was definitely under market rent, but we'll let you decide. So let's put our property manager hat on everyone and I'm excited to be doing this with you for one of our first episodes. So this first property we have is in North lakes. It's a three bedroom, two bathroom, one garage. Scrolling through the photos very quickly, we can see that it has ducted air conditioning. It's relatively modern. Um, let's see if the real estate agency have uploaded a floor plan. So for ducted air conditioning for a three bedroom, modern, good size house, there's no floor plan, so we can't really tell much. I'm going to also go on RP Data and search for this property to see what it comes up with on the I guess, the rental appraisal side. So looking on RP Data, I feel as if this agency could have gone for a little bit more. The property being advertised is only getting a 4.4% yield, which is relatively low. It looks like the agency has advertised the same photos since 2019, which is funny because that you have to have new photos every two years or so and I'm very certain they could get better ones than what is currently advertised. Okay, no floor plan listed, which does deter prospective tenants, but one of my favorite things is that they have not advertised the home naked, which a lot of people do. It's very frustrating Always have furniture in.

Speaker 1: 3:27

Let's move on to our second property. This one is a four bedroom, two bathroom, two garage house in North Lakes as well, and it's been been advertised naked but does have a floor plan for a rather big house. It's got split system, air conditioning, relatively modern. I believe if they advertised it with furniture, we may have a little bit more luck in getting higher rent. Let's see if the second property is advertised at the market rate or if they've let this client down by advertising the house naked with low quality photos naked with low quality photos and at the moment we are seeing oh, they've under rented this one. So this one, coming straight up on RP Data, is advising me that it could get 720 a week in rent, which technically means, with the proper advertising and strategy in place, this owner could probably be getting $730, $740 a week in rent for their property, which is a very big letdown from the rental agency this owner, unfortunately, has chosen to go with Now. This is interesting for a very similar property.

Speaker 1: 4:59

We'll move on to the next one now. This one is getting $650 a week in rent advertised. It's incredibly similar to the previous property. We've just seen why is there a $50 decrease? Again, though, we find that they've also advertised the property naked. There's no furniture in the house. Prospective tenants would not be able to visualize themselves living in the property with ease, but for some reason there's also no floor plan and it's rented at $50 less with the same agency. So these three properties that we've already discussed today and gone through these three properties are all achieving. They're all comparable properties apart from the first one, but they've either missing out on the furniture with advertisement or the floor plan, and those two things really do make a really big difference. So let's look on RP data to see where their third property hits on the list, and oh, it's not looking good. So it appears that this property also could be achieving $20 to $30 more per week. I actually rented one similar that looks very, very similar to this one and it was at $680 a week in rent. So, unfortunately, this owner has lost $30 a week in rent by choosing to go with a larger agency than one who specializes in property management.

Speaker 1: 6:47

Look, we'll go for the fourth one. Let's see what we find. If your property is in North Lakes and you are experiencing, maybe, an advertisement at the moment, I really hope this isn't one of your properties that we are talking about today. So the good thing with this is that this fourth property that we're viewing they've staged it perfectly. The photos do it justice. I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually sale photos, if I'm going to be honest and it's a nice house. They've got a floor plan online. It looks very achievable. It looks really homely.

Speaker 1: 7:31

My only concern is it's $680 a week in rent, where I think this one would probably be around the $700s. I personally would rent this one at $700 a week. I find it really odd that this one is at $680, being that it's really well presented. Um, I feel if this particular owner went with a boutique agency, they would be able to get a higher price. Um, but this property has only been increased a hundred dollars in a year and it was online last year, it looks like around the same time. I wonder why that is not many people. Yeah, that's very odd to go for just a difference of a hundred dollars. Of course that owner would feel really happy knowing that like she'll be like oh, that's amazing, but this property is coming up at $700 a week in rent and it presents really well online. So I believe that if this agency advertised it at 700 a week in rent, they would be able to get that result for that client.

Speaker 1: 8:44

It's really annoying that we've just gone through four properties within the same agency and every single property is advertised online. Under market rent, legislation has recently changed, so the property's rent has to be the same for the next 12 months from the 6th of June. However, I can't see much on these advertisements that the rent is changing anytime soon, which will only make me believe that these properties aren't of a break lease, there has been no adjustment in the rent and that they probably could have gone higher. But it's very good evidence to show that, unfortunately, the agencies with the leasing managers do want these properties rented quickly, not at a high price, and I've just shown you four, all from the same agency, all with the North Lakes, and it's just incredible that these are property managers that can't understand the market. What do you think? Let me know your thoughts. Thank you for listening, samantha from Talking Property Management. Our agency details are in the link below and we hope to speak with you soon.