How to stand out in the rental market during COVID

Last week I received a challenging request. I had to prepare a 30 sqm small courtyard apartment for rent In the 6th district (which has a huge oversupply of rental properties), on the top 3rd floor of a building without elevator. without elevator. Unfortunately, owners of rental properties cannot afford to spend as much money on preparing them as they would on preparing them for sale, so they always have to save on market research. I consider preparation without market analysis to be very unprofessional, because without it, preparation is a groping in the dark. Until you can see what the market has to offer, how many flats there are, what kind of goods they are, what quality they are, you cannot give informed advice to owners on what they need to do to sell their flats at the price they want.

So when I need to prepare for a sale – even if I don’t spend more days analysing the market than I usually do for a sale – I need to have a quick look at the supply for an hour or two.
So it turns out that, although the tourism crisis created by COVID19 has resulted in a lot of stylish, modern short term rentals being offered for long term rentals at very low prices, these apartments have two very obvious drawbacks. For one, they have very little storage space and usually have small kitchens. So our home already has two huge advantages that put it ahead of the competition.
So we decided not to remove the large wardrobe in the middle of the room and the folding dining table, but to find a way to keep them out of the way and still in the apartment, making it more functional than its competitors.

After that, all we have to do is decorate the space to make it cosy and inviting, and show it off with professional photos. And the ad text can verbally highlight the benefits that make this apartment an ideal choice for someone who has lots of stuff, wants a proper study/work corner and likes to cook big meals or entertain friends. As a bonus, we also have a large table in the corridor, which makes up for the balcony feeling.

It is also important to see that to make an apartment so inviting, a lot of decoration and accessories are needed. We brought 245.000 Ft worth of stuff in it. Most of this – candles, small pictures, artificial plants – can be rented to you by a trained home stager, but there are certain things that must be bought and left in the home for the tenant. For example, lamps, rugs, curtains or a large picture, without which the wall would be very bare. You will need to account for this extra cost. But the results are never disappointing!

Photo by István Homoki