How To Increase Your Rental Income

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91qi5Rcfrpk As a property investors you want to make sure you get the most rent possible so you can get the best return on investment possible. Today we talk about how to increase the rental return on your property. 0:00 - Introduction0:55 - Differentiate your property3:33 - Marketing your property better7:36 - Doubling rental income9:10 - Presenting your property well12:00 - Increasing rents over time Rental Results - https://rentalresults.com.au Rental Results YouTube Channel Transcription Ryan 0:00As a property investor, one of the things you want to be able to do is to get your property rented, but also to get that property rented for the best price possible so you can get the best return on investment possible. So today I have with me, Lauren Robinson from rental results.com.au. She's a rental manager. I've been in the industry for nearly 20 years now, and knows a lot about this stuff. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about how can we increase our rental return on our property and make sure that our properties always rented. So hey, Lauren, thanks for coming on today. Yeah, thanks Lauren 0:35for having me, Ryan. Ryan 0:36Yeah. So obviously, we want to make sure our property is rented and not vacant, because when it's vacant, we're not getting any rent rental income at all. But also, we want to maximize the rent that we can get on a property. So today, we wanted to share a few of those things. So what I guess how many of the biggest tips that you have for how to increase the rental return? Lauren 1:00Yes, I guess it really comes back to the type of property of God, but often we find, so things that are ways to differentiate your property would be say, for example, it's a two bedroom unit in a building with 50 other properties. So that's really hard to differentiate yours when they're all sort of very similar layouts, offering the same specs, and it might be a new bill. So what you can, what things that tenants would be prepared to pay more for is typically storage. So thinking about like the over the, over the bonnet of the car storage solutions, or yet or having like maybe a storage option on the balcony that's approved by the body corporate, so often units lack storage. Also, for houses, it's also understanding the type of tenant that that's that it's likely to appeal to, and then the things that they want. So typically, especially in Queensland, it's a conditioning tenants are prepared to pay more for things like dishwashers, fence yards. So we often get asked, Would attendant pay more for ceiling fans? So it really depends, but typically, if if a property was if there was a house, say a three bedroom house, and one had ceiling fans, and one didn't, attendant typically wouldn't pay more for that. But there would be a preference towards the one with the ceiling fans, whereas if it was air condition, they would possibly pay $10 a week or $15. A week more. Ryan 2:27Yeah, so there's some certain things that's like, Okay, this will help my property get rented more quickly. So if someone walks in a three bedroom house, in Brisbane, every bedroom has ceiling fans, they're like, okay, check, at least they've got ceiling fans, if you walk into a house, and it doesn't have ceiling fans. It's like, Oh, that's annoying. But look, I can do standing fans, and I can buy it for 20 bucks from Bunnings. And that will be okay. So it's not like a deal breaker. They're not like, Okay, I'm gonna pay more for ceiling fans. But obviously, air conditioning versus ceiling fans definitely, in summer in Queensland, is a very big difference in your living experience. So I can understand why people would be like, Okay, I'm gonna pay $10 more a week or $20 more a week, or whatever it is for air conditioning. So what I'm hearing from you is it really comes down to understanding your property, understanding what people in the market want, when it comes to that type of property, and basically trying to work out okay, what can I give them that they're willing to pay more for? Lauren 3:31Definitely. Another thing I've seen happen. And we've actually experienced that ourselves where we've had a property, an organist come to us with a property that set on the market for, say, six weeks with a different agent. We've gone through and we've changed the marketing. So we've done professional photography, we've added the 2d 3d floor plans, we've had a virtual tour added to that advertising, and we've set it at the top of those searches. And we've been able to achieve $20 more awake, just and rented it within two days, purely because of the change in marketing. Ryan 4:02Okay, so this is someone who is sat vacant for six weeks. Yes. being advertised online, obviously. Wow. And then you're able to get $20 more per week. Yes. And rent it within a couple of days, just from better marketing. So you didn't actually change anything in the property itself? Lauren 4:18No. So nothing changed in that unit. And we actually manage others in the building. So we knew that it was being advertised below market rent. But yeah, purely came down to how it was advertised online, which led to us more attracting more tenants. Yeah. So Ryan 4:33what was so bad about the advertising before? I guess, people things to avoid? Basically, yes. So poor quality photos. So Lauren 4:43I think sometimes a misconception is that all property managers are the same. And I think sometimes people choose a property manager purely based on fees. And I think that's really important. And I think for investors that have had properties for a long time and managed by different agents, they'll know that you then Assign. So I think it's really important to make sure that you're really understanding Okay, how's my property going to be marketing? where like, what sort of things can that agent offer that other agents aren't doing? How will that attract a tenant at a higher rent? So I think that's really important to understand. Ryan 5:16And is it expensive to get professional photos done to get a floor plan done? What about like the what I've seen the walkthroughs, where you can click and move around the place like they're epic, they're the best, right? It's like, why doesn't everyone have this? Is it super expensive to do? Lauren 5:30No, it really isn't. It's Listen, you know, like less than a week's rent for all that sort of stuff. We do our own 360 degree virtual tours, so walk through to is, and yeah, so in those all those things are really important to make sure that you get you're getting a quality tenant, so the best tenant that's for that particular property, you're also attracting the type of tenant that you want in that home, you're getting the highest rent, and also in the quickest amount of time, which is all really invest at once Well, that's it's spending half a week to enter a week around, but now it's not vacant for six weeks. So you can start to see the payoff there. And then also, let's say that tenant only does a six month lease or 12 month lease and moves out, there's the potential of the property still in the same condition, you can reuse the same photo, so you don't have to pay for it again, next time. You just have it for next time. Ryan 6:21So if I guess marketing wasn't one that I expected to say, okay, you can actually get increased rent as a result of this. Yeah, Lauren 6:29I mean, I've got a marketing background. So I might have got a marketing degree. And so that's really important for me is making sure everything's really well presented online. Because I know myself when you're looking online at properties, if you see, you know, something online that doesn't look or local that appealing, you can overlook it, and then go on to the next one. And I think sometimes it really, you know, it can do an injustice to your property. And like I know others in the office have rented properties that are amazing, but looked really bad online. And then I went to the inspection were like, wow, this is incredible. We're gonna rent it. Ryan 7:04That's the one you hope you find when you're retired that there's no one open for inspection. No one's interested because it's just poorly marketed. But, but obviously, as investors, we don't want that. So are there any things that are like okay, for, obviously, not every property, but a lot of properties. These are like a few things that you see commonly that people can do to add value $5 a week here, $10 a week, they're $20 a week, their air conditioning is one we mentioned, storage in unit complexes is another. Is there anything else? Lauren 7:36Yeah, definitely. So depending on the area, so I myself have a property in St. Lucia. So it's near the University of Queensland. So I added another bedroom, just by reconfiguring the layout, and I was able to increase that rent from 260 a week to 520 a week. Ryan 7:53You say 260 to five. Lauren 7:57So it was it was a two bedroom. It's now a three bedroom. So I also spent 26,000 renovating that. So new kitchen, new bathroom, fresh paint. But you know, not a lot of money. And I doubled the rent in that. Ryan 8:11Well, that's it like you spent What? 26 grand, and then you get an extra Meili or $250 a week or something like that for it that will pay for itself in two years, basically. Lauren 8:21Yeah, definitely. So yes, I think it depends on the property. But I think yeah, there's definitely things and that work wouldn't work in every area. So obviously, changing that layout meant so like the livings really small now. But in that particular area, the students don't typically care about the size of living area, they want bedrooms and want to Ryan 8:42separate bedrooms, because they've got their own space. So yes, yeah. Because you knew your market, because you knew you'd be renting to university students, not to a family who would value that bigger living space.