Rent Without An Agent

If you engage a real estate agent to look after your property rental, the costs can be rather high compared with the service actually received.  Typically, the cost is a weeks rent to find a tenant, plus GST, and then 8.8% to collect the rent and do the ongoing management.  On rent of $550 a week, assuming that you have a tenant change once a year, the cost is over $3,000 a year.

If you live near your rental property, and don't mind learning how to legally comply with rental laws (the RTA website has good information), then Rent My Estate is a good service for landlords.  It helps manage the realestate.com.au advertising process, and is expanding into other programs for landlords (such as recording rents received).  Readers of this blog will receive a $20 discount via this link shared by a reader - thanks John.  The savings year on year could be substantial, if you are prepared to put in the time yourself to do things properly.  There is also a good blog on that site.

Rent My Estate

For landlords who do not like real estate agents, a new service -- Rent My Estate -- allows landlords to list on real-estate.com.au.  It provides a good interface for landlords to create and manage online advertisements.

Where the rent is about $650 a week, an agent will typically charge more than $4,000 a year for property management services.  Most agents, in my opinion, do a poor job on the rental side.  So if you have the time and skills, and live near your rental property, you can save a substantial amount and get a better result using Rent My Estate.