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With university semester commencements looming, one property management expert has offered advice to prospective student tenants hunting to secure a rental in an increasingly tight market.
The departure of university students from their old tenancies was credited as causing a slight, seasonal uptick in Australia’s residential vacancy rate, from 1 per cent last November to 1.3 per cent in December.
Now, with January half complete and the year’s first semester on the horizon, Raine & Horne head of property management Maria Milillo has offered some advice for university students hunting for accommodation for the academic year.
Ms Milillo warned returning university students will “always squeeze rental vacancy rates in our capital cities and regional university towns”.
Among her advice for accommodation-hunting students, she said: “Persistence, punctuality, and presentation will be critical in helping prospective tenants into a home.”
Inspecting as many rental homes as possible and viewing each meeting with a property manager as “a job interview” is paramount, according to Ms Milillo, who also urged prospective tenants to “organise some references from employers, university lecturers, schoolteachers, a family doctor, or solicitors — and especially past property managers or landlords”.
Despite describing it as sounding “cheesy,” she recommended students bring their parents to inspections as it often works. She suggested “getting parents or guardians to countersign a lease agreement can help, making them jointly responsible for the lease”.
She also recommended students planning to rent a property with other student friends should draft ground rules, including ensuring all tenants sign the lease to ensure you have equal property rights and equal liability for maintaining the property and ensuring the rent is paid.
Moreover, “when it comes to paying the rent, you might decide to pay your portion separately, but at the same time, it might be worth electing one of the share mates to be the head tenant to chase up slow payers”.
Ms Milillo added to work out a fair share of the rent prior to signing the lease, which can be achieved through tenants paying on how much space each tenant uses.
“To get an accurate breakdown, get the square meterage of each bedroom from your property manager and divide it by the total square meterage of the property.
“This provides a percentage of space each room occupies, and this percentage can be used to calculate each tenant’s contribution to the weekly rent. This method should also consider any situation where one tenant has an en suite or balcony and another doesn’t,” she concluded.
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