There is a VERY strong mentality amongst onsite managers, that upgraded listings are expensive. I hear it every day. I get managers calling me up telling me they desperately need to find a tenant, and they\u2019re losing rent, and when I explain the very simple solution is to boost exposure, they balk because of the ‘high cost’ of an upgrade. This is wrong-headed thinking and not the correct way to approach marketing. Marketing doesn\u2019t cost money, marketing saves money!!! Good agents know this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The average real estate agent commits hundreds of dollars EVERY MONTH on EVERY RENTAL LISTING to market them. In fact most real estate offices are now on UPGRADE ALL plans, where they automatically upgrade every single listing, every 30 days. They pass this cost onto the landlord of course, so it doesn\u2019t actually cost them anything, but *why* do they do this? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They do this because they understand the most expensive thing in property management, is an empty rental. No one’s getting paid in that scenario, not the owner, not the manager. A couple of hundred dollars is nothing, compared to six weeks trying to find a suitable tenant. If you\u2019re the only manager in your suburb who isn\u2019t upgrading your listings, that\u2019s a lot of listings prospective tenants will be scrolling past before they even see yours. It\u2019s going to take vastly longer to get enquiries, and find tenants, and your rent will suffer as a result. Less rent, more empty days cost your owners a fortune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whenever my own personal properties come up for rent, I always upgrade them, straight away. This gives them the best fighting chance of getting a quality tenant quickly, and at reasonable rent. If you have to drop your rent just five dollars, it will have cost your owner more than if they\u2019d simply taken out a highlight listing in most suburbs. If your $500 a week rental sits empty for just 3 days, it will have lost more in rent than the same upgrade as well. If you drop your rent $5 and sit empty for three days, your rent loss has DOUBLED the price of a highlight upgrade. In reality, owners agree to drop their rent far more than this and tolerate sitting empty far longer than this when their campaign has failed to attract a tenant \u2013 and managers have to convince them this is a good idea. Why? It isn\u2019t a good idea at all, what managers should be doing is convincing the owner that if they want to compete with the other listings in their area, and attract quality tenants paying top rent, quickly, they should commit a small amount of tax deductible marketing budget to get the job done. Is it a gamble? Sure, but it usually pays off. Dropping rent and sitting empty NEVER pays off, it\u2019s a guaranteed loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s a conversation I had just yesterday: Nick I haven\u2019t had any enquiries on this rental and I\u2019m\nfreaking out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a thirteen hundred dollar listing!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes it\u2019s a two story penthouse on the ocean. But we\nurgently need a tenant.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s really beautiful! Why don\u2019t you upgrade it, it looks\namazing but it needs way better exposure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n They cost money though right?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You know what else costs money? A thirteen hundred dollar\nlisting sitting empty. If it sits empty for just one single day, the lost rent\nwill exceed the upgrade cost.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My owner won\u2019t want to pay for that, it\u2019s a break lease.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If it\u2019s a break lease, your tenant will have to pay the\nrent every week it sits empty till a new tenant is found, for just one day\u2019s\nrent they have to pay anyway, they can get a replacement tenant faster and save\nthemselves a fortune! It\u2019s a no brainer!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a good idea Nick. I will put it to them, thanks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why I\u2019m here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I generally have a discussion like this once per day, every\nday, with a manager (hence why I\u2019m writing this article, so you can all hear it\nat once). Upgrades don\u2019t cost money, upgrades MAKE money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some other questions I get asked DAILY about upgrades:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How much will it cost to upgrade my listing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: There are a lot of factors involved to determine the price, I can\u2019t tell you off the top of my head, but the site will know. Simply open your listing up, view (or enter, if a new listings) the address making sure it\u2019s valid, then click the Campaign Upgrades panel, this will show you all the upgrades available and their exact costs for your type of listing, in your area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How long do upgrades last?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: 30 days, but you shouldn\u2019t NEED 30 days because it\u2019s an UPGRADE! The whole point is to fill the rental as fast as possible. For normal agents, the remainder of their campaign is forfeited once a tenant is found, however as all your listings are in the same location you can easily reuse your upgrade on a different listing, once a tenant has been found for the original one. This lets you spread upgrade costs between multiple listings for an entire month, giving you a huge competitive advantage against outside agents. You should capitalise on this, it\u2019s crazy not to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: My owner doesn\u2019t want to pay to upgrade. Won\u2019t they\u2019ll just switch to an outside agent?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Have you asked them? *MOST* outside agents these days are on upgrade all plans already, meaning most agents will charge a marketing fee as a default and mandatory cost, if they don\u2019t want to upgrade, they\u2019d be better off staying with you who can offer them the choice and freedom of upgrading or not, but I strongly recommend upgrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q: How do I upgrade, what do they look like, what information is there on them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A: Every single time you advertise a listing on our site, you scroll past the Campaign Upgrades panel, it\u2019s right there on the listing while you edit it. Simply open this panel up, everything you need to know is in there! Prices, examples of each type of upgrade, even downloadable brochures explaining the benefits and features. It\u2019s all there, take a look! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Upgrade Listing FAQs<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please, give upgrades some consideration, and consider the\nTRUE cost of not upgrading. In most cases, upgrades will be much cheaper than\nthe \u201cfree\u201d alternative. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a VERY strong mentality amongst onsite managers, that upgraded listings are expensive. I hear it every day. I get managers calling me up telling me they desperately need to find a tenant, and they\u2019re losing rent, and when I explain the very simple solution is to boost exposure, they balk because of the ‘high cost’ of an upgrade. This is wrong-headed thinking and not the correct way to approach marketing. Marketing doesn\u2019t cost money, marketing saves money!!! Good agents know this. The average real estate agent commits hundreds of dollars EVERY MONTH on EVERY RENTAL LISTING to market them. In fact most realRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":1355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-refreshweb","post-1354","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-landlords-tenants-renting-and-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1357,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions\/1357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n*manager calls me up*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n