Should You Allow Pets In Your Investment Property?
Channel: Hicks Real Estate
Date: 14/04/2022

Should you allow Pets in your Investment Property?
https://hicksrealestate.com.au/property-management/

One of the big points of discussion we often have with our owners is whether or not they should allow tenants to have pets in the property. 

Hi Erin here from Hicks Real Estate. Recent research indicates that only around 10% of rental properties are pet friendly, with property owners fearful of damage to their property.

However there are some great reasons to allow pets in an investment property.

Tenants who find a pet-friendly rental property often choose to sign longer leases, knowing they can keep their beloved pets. This could mean property investors are able to rent their properties sooner. In our experience we have found that allowing your tenants to have pets in the property can greatly increase the longevity of each tenancy. 

We've also found that as long as you have the right checks in place and also use the right mitigation strategies you can reduce the risk of having pets in your property. 

When assessing a tenancy application that includes pets we like to look at the whole application rather than just saying yes they have a pet or no they don’t.  We have a look at what they are bringing to the table,  if it's a lovely well presented family where the parents are both in good employment and they have a beloved family dog we believe that is quite an attractive prospect for one of our clients if on the other hand we get three unkept, loud and rude people turn up that each have a pitbull we might think that when you add all those factors together it wouldn't be attractive to allow pets into the property. 

In terms of attracting tenants, ticking that box that says pet friendly is a really great way of increasing the amount of interest you get in the property, sometime you get an extra 50%  inquiries for any property that allows pets. 

Of course allowing pets into the property does come with a little bit of extra risk but we aim to mitigate that through putting specific clauses in each lease that talks about the responsibilities of the pet owner and what will happen if they don't abide by those. For any lease that includes a pet the extra clauses can include the tenants responsible for paying for any damage caused by the pet including - damage to the garden. Or when they vacate the property the tenants are acquired to get a flea treatment for the property inside and out regardless of whether the pet was inside the property or not. 

We're also able to specify the areas of the house that the pet is allowed to reside in for example if there's a large indoor storage area downstairs you might specify that a dogs allowed to go in there but isn't allowed to go on the upstairs section of the house where there may be polish floors. 
We have found that tenants with pet are more likely to want to renew their lease they tend to appreciate the opportunity given to them by the landlord and they also see that it might be a little more difficult for them to find another property so if they're comfortable why not stick around with a landlord that they know trusts them. 

If you'd like to talk to us further about how to mitigate the risk of having pets in your property or how allowing pets might increase your property’s appeal please don't hesitate to give me a call.

For more information or to arrange an inspection please call 07 3355 6845 or visit: www.hicksrealestate.com.au