Remember those days when you had to search line adverts, no images, in the local paper or would have to go around to all the local real estate agencies and pick up their current rental list when you were looking for a place to rent? Well, I’m sure everyone these days know that online is where you go to search available properties now and that there’s two major players in the game – Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au.
The internet obviously gives advertisers and consumers far greater reach, but it’s costly and the most common question I get from Landlords is “do I need to advertise on both?”. It’s a fair question especially if the overall marketing costs are more than the weekly rental return.
Depending on the location, price point and type of property, the market share between the two does vary, but generally speaking we see that it’s fairly even split in where the actual enquiries come from. Given that the first responsibility that property managers have to their Landlords is being effective marketers, it’s hard for agents to recommend just going with just one site if that means cutting out half of the potential audience. Numbers matter and it may mean the difference of vacancy or no vacancy, competition between even just two parties, and or giving you the opportunity of choosing best quality tenant.
Coming off the back of COVID and a very difficult rental market, it’s important for Landlords to know what features are available to them on both sites. Sure, professional photography is a standard now in rentals and those agents or Landlords that have poor quality amateur photos stand out for the wrong reason, but beyond just listing on the property search sites and offering the prospective tenant audience professional photos, there are options to increase your property visibility.
The first and obvious one, is top positioned adverts or premium paid, which means that at the point of when your property goes live, your advert comes in at the very top of the available list based on suburb and features such as number of bedrooms. The agencies or Landlords that don’t contract this with both Realestate and Domain may offer you cheaper online advertising costing but your property will be a smaller sized advert and be listed after all of the premium adverts, which means pages and pages down from the beginning of the campaign.
In addition to placement, there are also a few features that may be worth talking to your agent about especially if the market is slow or your property sits within a high dense offering – such as inner city 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. Two that are worth exploring are E-brochures and Showcasing or Features advertising of your property.
Whilst the features and costing of E-brochures vary between the two sites, effectively what the product does is that your property is proactively sent to those active tenants looking for similar properties. For example, if a tenant is looking for a 1 bedroom apartment in Bondi as their preference, they will receive the E-brochure for your 1 bedroom apartment, similar price band, in a nearby surrounding suburb that they may not have even considered.
With Showcase or Feature adverts, your property is advertised on the page of selected target suburb, again typically a surrounding or ‘like’ suburb to where your property is located. It’s a less targeted approach than the E-brochure but the potential visibility is significant. The property search sites will generally charge a weekly fee for this option and you’re able to go week by week and access report which show the stats need to make decision as you go along.
Should you have any questions regarding getting the most out of your rental property online advertising, please do contact me.
Grant McKay
Director
Litehouse Property
0414 518 101
[email protected]
Comments are closed
Compare & Save with Litehouse Connections Service
See what they say
