6 Tips to improve your online property listing

Written by Geruza Nzongo, Tenant Success Officer at HouseME, Smart Property Rental for Landlords and Tenants.

Reading Time: 5 Minutes

In a recent blog post, we outlined some steps on how you can take professional-looking photos to maximise interest when you are listing your property to rent. Today we are going to help you fine-tune the information featured on your property advert.

The property description section provides an excellent opportunity for you to detail aspects of your property that sometimes a picture can’t explain. Let’s get started!

How To Make Your Online Property Listing More Appealing

1. Showcase The Accessibility Of Your Property

How Close Is Your Property To Local Amenities? When listing your property, be sure to include the full residential address. Prospective tenants usually like doing additional research by using applications like Google Maps to see a property’s street view. For complexes and townhouses, including the unit number and on what floor it is.

You can also add your property’s proximity to local amenities like supermarkets, gyms and local parks so that the location immediately becomes more attractive.

2. Know Your Suburb

This may seem like a silly point to highlight, but did you know Kensington and Kensington B are two different suburbs in Johannesburg? Getting the spelling and full address correct makes all the difference to your listing’s visibility. Ensuring that tenants know the location of your property, and also that it is advertised in the right region.

HOT TIP: For accuracy, use your property’s postal code to find the correct suburb.

3. Furnished Or Unfurnished?

It’s important to indicate whether your rental is furnished or not, or even if it is partially furnished. Making mention of furnishings like a fridge, couch, or even a bed means tenants won’t have to worry about the cost of a moving company or the cost to purchase the items if they do not yet own them.

If the property is furnished, but the pictures of your property show your space without the furniture, the description offers a great opportunity to highlight what will be available. Better yet, take a few snaps of what is available to entice your future tenant more.

On the flip side, if your photos show the unit as furnished, but you are renting it empty, be sure to highlight this in your description to avoid confusion.

PRO TIP: HouseME Chief Executive, Ben Shaw Says: “Interestingly, we see that at the higher price-points (R 20,000+), furnished is more appealing, as the tenant typically travels city-to-city, or is involved in international business. In lower rental brackets, unfurnished is the norm, although this trend is bucked in shared property communes.”

4. Is The Property Available Immediately?

A typical rental agency in South Africa receives a large number of tenant applications daily. Did you know that HouseME alone receives over 80 applications on most days? One of the first questions that is usually asked is whether the property is still available and more so, how soon will the property be available.

There is no denying that tenants are spoilt for choice in today’s rental climate, so be sure to make your property stand out by mentioning that you are open to considering an immediate start date.

5. Is The Property Pet-Friendly?

Fur babies have long been members of many families and knowing they are welcome as part of a rental property gives many pet owners peace of mind. It is usually quite challenging to find pet-friendly properties, so if pets are allowed on your property, then be sure to highlight this.

6. Take Full Advantage of The Description Section

A lesser-known fact is that most property marketplaces do not have character limits for the description section of property listings. Use this opportunity to be as descriptive and specific as you would like; this is one of the few cases where more is actually better.

Find The Right Tenants Quickly & Easily With HouseME

There you have it, 6 tips to go from sad to fab! But if you still not sure where to start, why not give HouseME a try? Our rentals are advertised across South Africa’s most popular property marketplaces, making sure that it will be seen. Contact HouseME for assistance and increase your odds of finding a new tenant faster.