New Optus Report Offers Valuable Insights For Landlords

The Optus Renter of The Future report released recently to provide some fascinating insights into the behaviour of renters in the Australian property market. It is a national research which was commissioned to uncover the trends in renting an about the expectations people have while renting properties.

It was always commonly believed that all Australians dream about living in their own homes. They work hard to save enough to make this dream come true. However, this report shows that this is not a universal fact. In fact, as high as 30% of the people who rent houses do so out of choice. Interestingly, many of them are landlords themselves; they just prefer to rent out their own homes at a higher price and rent in a house where the rents are low. The difference in the cash flow augments their lifestyle and they are indeed happy with that.

Why people want to rent properties:

The main reasons why people prefer to stay in rented reveal a lot about the lifestyles of the tenants. They clearly need a balance between convenience, safety and flexibility.

The top reasons for staying in a rented property are:

• 38% of the renters do not want to live in the same house for a long time. They want to be able to change their location of residence very easily.
• 18% of them want to travel for long periods at a time.
• 24% prefer to rent properties as they can shift to a larger or smaller house whenever they feel like.

Other important aspects

The new generation of renters has become very tech savvy and they have very defined expectations about the properties that they want to rent. The following are the salient points that came out of the study regarding their expectations:

• 38% want easy parking facilities in the property or the vicinity.
• 32% want the properties to be pet-friendly.
• 22% look at the number of power outlets in the rooms. With most of them owning a number of gadgets, it is important for them to be able to connect these easily.
• 31% want a robust connectivity to remain online at all times. They prefer to have a cable Internet or an even faster connection so that they do not face any connectivity hassles.
• 25% favour properties in which the mobile signal is high in every corner.

The bottom line

At present, there is an abundance of supply of rental properties in most of the major cities in Australia. The findings of this study reflect this trend. The tenants now have the upper hand and thus, they can demand these facilities from their landlords. The landlords have to ensure that their properties meet these specifications. Otherwise, they will face the risk of tenants choosing other properties which offer these facilities.

The Optus report is thus important for landlords as now they have a guideline of what they will have to provide the tenants if they want their properties to get rented by them.