You can’t sell a secret

19 Mar You can’t sell a secret

Should you advertise the address of your vacant property?

Our experience shows that including the address when advertising your rental property is definitely recommended.

Tenants look for three key points of information when making their initial search:

– Where is the property? – not just suburb, but street address as well
– How much is the rent?
– How many bedrooms does it have?

Finding tenants is very competitive at the moment so you need to do all you can to attract enquiry. You risk having your listing ignored if you are not providing the basic information tenants want. By not including the address you are automatically requiring the tenant to make contact to get it. Many tenants simply won’t bother.

From the owner’s point of view, you risk having to deal with enquiries that quickly come to an end when the tenant discovers the address is not suitable.

Providing the address means the tenant will know for sure how far the nearest facilities are, if it really is just a 3 minute walk to the station; if the location really is ‘central to everything’. They will be able to ‘do a drive by’ before booking an inspection – another time saving strategy for both owner and tenant.

The reasons put forward for withholding an address from display include:

• potential security issues
• concerns for the privacy of current tenants
• the belief that enquiry will be higher because tenants will have to make contact to get the address

There is little evidence to support the notion that security breaches are more likely to occur when an address is displayed. Realistically, the privacy of current tenants is not threatened either. Potential applicants driving by the property can hardly be considered as encroaching on the occupant’s right to quiet enjoyment.

Frankly it is a misconception to think that withholding an address is a clever marketing tactic. Rather is will succeed only in discouraging potential enquiries, and wasting the time of both the owner and the potential tenant.

“You can’t sell a secret” is an astute marketing observation. The goal should be to attract the best possible tenant in the shortest possible time. Withholding the address from an advertisement achieves neither outcome.