During the last six months some landlords who have relaxed their ‘no pets’ policy with Peter Fletcher Realty were now achieving up to a 10% increase in weekly rents. Considering that many landlords spend thousands of dollars on home renovations to boost weekly rents by 10%, allowing pets in a rental property can achieve the same financial outcome without any cost to the landlord.

Because vacancy rates are now so low, people with pets are now prepared to pay a premium to secure a rental property. We have had several landlords who have now relaxed their no pet’s policy and now are securing higher weekly rents and also have excellent tenants.

Many landlords do not realise that Western Australians currently own more than 800,000 dogs and more than 400,000 cats. We are finding that around one in every four tenant applicants have pets. Therefore by having a no pets policy, landlords are effectively excluding a large pool of prospective tenants.

In many cases, many of these prospective tenants are more elderly people who have long term pets and who have very good character references. Younger people are also living alone and have cats as well as small dogs as personal companions. People under 30 years of age currently account for a significant part of the rental market.

Many landlords, however, do not understand that special safeguards can be put in place if the tenant has a pet. For example, the landlord can ask the owner of the pet to provide some background details on the animal which would include its past history in previous rental properties. In addition, a special pet bond can be written into the rental contract which will ensure that the landlord is compensated if the pet does any damage to the property.

Pet bonds also place a responsibility on the tenant to make sure the pet is well behaved by imposing a financial penalty. Pet bonds are now becoming more common in the Perth rental market and they help ensure that a reliable person with a pet can lease a property with this special safeguard in place.

The landlord can also write into the contract the option of increasing the level of property inspections for a tenant who has a pet.

It is a realty that pets are becoming an integral part of the rental property market in Western Australia because of the growing trend for people to live alone and this is a major issue that landlords will have to address in the future if they want to achieve a high rate of return from their investment property.