When should you start advertising?
You can read the full article about best time to advertise the property. Generally, you need to allow 4-6 weeks to find a tenant (from creating an advert to the tenant moving in). In some circumstances, that timeframe is shorter or longer.
Need help setting up a listing?
Read our quick guide on creating a listing and getting started with a vacant property
Once the listing is paid for and goes live, what should you do with enquiries?
Once the property is advertised, the applicants can enquire about your property on any site we advertise on. We collide all enquiries in one place for your convenience, so you can keep all communication with your potential tenants in one place and write all responses to them directly from your myRent account. You're of course welcome to reach out to applicants by phone or email. Their contact details are always shared with and available to you.
By choosing to communicate via myRent messenger you will keep your contact details private until you're ready to share them.
How quickly should you reply?
We generally think that in order to keep things moving and not wasting anyone’s time, it’s good to keep applicants updated early if they’re not suitable. That's the reason we introduced a “soft-decline” button (which you can find in Messages). The soft-decline feature sends a polite message letting people know they haven’t made your shortlist, so they can continue looking for other places. Also, if you think someone is perfect for your rental, it's best to reply to them quickly, as it's likely they're looking at other properties.
Do you ask tenants to complete applications first or wait until after the viewing?
Privacy Commissioner's guidelines for NZ landlords state that when organising viewings, landlords should only collect tenants’ names and contact information. The option to complete an application can be made available for tenants, but they shouldn't be required to do so. In most cases, you’re best to run open homes, show the property to as many interested parties as possible, and then ask people to apply if they’re interested, shortlist, and select the one to rent the property to.
Some more information on running viewings - https://www.myrent.co.nz/viewings-and-tenant-selection
Do you need to allocate a specific timeframe to run viewings for?
Up to you entirely. If you have excellent candidates on the first day that you’re happy to run with, nothing stops you from proceeding with them, asking them to complete applications, running checks while the property is still on the market.
Do you need to run tenant checks on all the shortlisted applicants?
Once you’ve selected the “one” candidate you’re invested in, you may want to run tenant checks. Again, not all landlords do this, some insurance companies require this step. So it’s up to you if you want to order them. We recommend that you tenant check all adults who will be renting the property from you.
What should you do once you've made your selection?
Once you’re happy with the person chosen, you can "send an offer" to perspective tenants and prepare tenancy paperwork. We would recommend at this stage marking the listing as “under offer”, which will update all the interested parties about the status change of the listing. But the property will still continue to be advertised. Once the paperwork is signed, and money collected, you should mark the listing as "rented" (this again will send a notification to all the parties letting them know the property is no longer available).
If you're using myRent, you can start the process of preparing necessary paperwork in just a few clicks. All the information about you, tenants and property is automatically pre-filled, so completely tenancy agreements and bond lodgement forms is really easy and straightforward.
