Red hot real estate markets in the Greater Toronto Area, Vancouver and other Canadian centres are creating new opportunities not only for homeowners, but also for owners of condominium investment properties. And, by extension, we’re also seeing a strong source of new business for the real estate agents and property management companies who are active in the leasing space.
As markets have continued to heat up, we’ve seen a significant shift in the numbers of real estate agents and property management companies who are serving as leasing agents, finding tenants for the owners of these investment property condos.
The trend is quite stark compared to four or five years ago, where condo owners either lived in their units themselves or did their own legwork in finding tenants for their investment properties.
These days, there’s a lot more money in the offing, both in terms of rental income for the condo owner and commission for the leasing agent. The cost of buying for the condo owner is way up. So is the rental price they can charge tenants. So the impetus to find a good quality tenant and get them moved in and paying rent is extremely high. This makes an agent especially valuable, because time is of the essence.
According to Kijiji’s data, the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom condo in Toronto has risen from $1,550 to $1,660 in the past two years. In Vancouver, the same sized unit jumped from $1,630 to $1,800. Even in smaller centres like Fredericton, rents have risen from $760 to $840 per month.
For the real estate salesperson or property manager serving as a leasing agent, the general compensation ballpark for finding a tenant is roughly equivalent to one month’s rent. Brokering condo leases can be lucrative, especially for real estate agents who are new to the profession and are still getting established.
Newer real estate agents need time to build their profile in a market. Getting to the point of signing those first home sales, even in the hot markets, takes a fair amount of time and effort up front. So by putting together new leasing tenants with investment property condo owners, you can bring in some decent commissions while working toward the bigger payoffs from selling houses.
Marketing to prospective condo renters relies on the same core fundamentals as finding the right home buyer in this online day and age: your listing needs to get in front of the eyes of that person doing the search. Knowing not only what they’re looking for but how and when they are looking is critical to finding the lead that ultimately becomes the sale.
At Kijiji, we work with leasing agents to target placement of rental ads based on the search habits of prospective tenants – when they’re searching listings, on what devices and using what filtering criteria, such as bedrooms, location, amenities and price.
For leasing agents, data-driven insights combined with fundamental knowledge of your market area is the one-two punch. While some markets in western Canada are cooling a bit due to economic and new regulatory factors, overall Canadian markets remain strong and we expect to see continuation across the board, including these leasing deal opportunities for agents and property managers.
Al Maitland is head of display, jobs & real estate at kijiji.ca
