Rental properties: Savvy tactics desperate tenants are using to find a home, how to make your rental application stand out

Desperate tenants are coming up with imaginative and unexpected ways to secure a new home, amid our rental crisis.

• Revealed: 862 suburbs where rents are less than $400

Desperate times call for desperate measures and the nation’s renters are ruling out nothing in their search for a roof over their heads.

Fed up with missing out each week on rental applications or turning up to open inspections to fight for virtually uninhabitable places, many are on the brink of despair. But necessity is the mother of invention.

Some have turned to monitoring property sales in their desired suburb and then taking action, said Real Estate Institute of NSW CEO Tim McKibbin.

“Assume you bought a property. I might go to the agent and say, ‘the buyer of 10 Smith St, is he an owner occupier or will he rent it out? Because if he intends renting it out, I’d like to apply for it now and you don’t have to do all the open inspections and everything else,” Mr McKibbin said.

If it’s just sold, it could be for rent. Picture: Newscorp- Daily Telegraph / Gaye Gerard

This tactic would have been unheard of once, but this is no ordinary market. Even Mr McKibbin is currently looking for a rental … unsuccessfully.

“I’m trying to find a rental property for someone coming in from overseas and you would think with my connections that I might be able to do that quite easily,” he said. “But I’m having trouble.

“It is very hard out there and it’s just going to get worse … We’ve got a population increasing quite sharply, a (big) intake of immigrants and more demand, with the supply diminishing.”

So, what can tenants do to give themselves the best chance of securing a place in this market?

TOP TIPS TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR NEXT RENTAL PROPERTY

Apply yourself when applying

Get the basics right, Nick Georges, LJ Hooker group head of property management, said.

“You hear stories of 40 people turning up at open inspections, but 60 per cent of the applications that come through aren’t completed properly,” Mr Georges said. “In really tight markets, property managers don’t need to even look at those, because there are so many others.”

Documentation and references

“Supporting documentation is really important,” Mr Georges said. “The ID, employment reference and pay slips should be ready before you walk into a property.

“Some tenants are putting cover letters on their application, which summarises their situation and that is attractive to a property manager because they’ve got a snapshot of what that tenant is offering without trawling through documents.”

REINSW CEO Tim McKibbin, NSW real estate.

Make the right impression

“If there are 20 people at an inspection, 15 or more might make good tenants, so you just want to make a positive interaction,” Mr Georges said. “Don’t stand out for the wrong reasons.”

Make your best offer

Many applicants are offering more than the advertised rent. That is legal, but it is illegal for agents to tell tenants how much rent other people have offered. So, Mr Georges said tenants should lead with their best offer.

Offer to sign a long-term lease

Market conditions can change relatively quickly, so landlords may be attracted to the security of a long-term lease. Mr Georges said mentioning this on a cover letter can instantly make a tenant more attractive.

Be urgent and responsive

“You hear about 20 applications being submitted, but how many are on the Saturday compared to Monday morning? You need to be ready to go,” Mr Georges said.

“If you do get accepted for the property, secure it immediately, don’t wait until after work, or the next day.”

Hopeful Sydney-siders checking out the Sydney rental market in the Eastern Suburbs. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Make yourself known to agents

If the property managers have links to selling agents at the same company, Mr Georges says it can pay to be on their list of motivated, quality tenants.

“A selling agent may sell a property and then a property manager might have someone who wants to rent it, so they ring the owner and see if they want to lease it out and match the two up,” Mr Georges said. “It’s a smooth transaction and they don’t have to go through the process of advertising and open inspections.”