Written from the trenches of Auckland real estate by Amit Sharma — Bayleys agent, 10+ years marketing experience.
Selling with tenants in place is the campaign most likely to go sideways, and almost never for the reason owners expect. The problem is rarely the tenants. It is that the owner treats the tenancy as an inconvenience to be managed rather than as a relationship that will decide how the property shows for the next six weeks.
Start with the decision itself: sell tenanted, or sell vacant. Sell tenanted and your buyer pool skews to investors, who are buying an income stream and will price it as one. Sell vacant and you open the pool to owner-occupiers, who buy emotionally and generally pay more — but you carry the holding cost, and the property has to present well empty. In much of Auckland the owner-occupier premium outweighs a few weeks of lost rent. In a high-yield investment property it may not. Work the number both ways before you commit.
You must give written notice before any inspection or open home, and tenants can reasonably refuse some access. Plan a campaign that respects this — and brief your tenants honestly.
The Residential Tenancies Act sets out the notice periods and the limits on how often you can enter — your property manager or the Tenancy Services website will give you the current requirements, and they are worth reading rather than assuming, because they have changed more than once in recent years. The practical version: build the campaign schedule around fixed, agreed times rather than asking for access ad hoc. Tenants will accommodate a predictable Sunday slot far more willingly than a series of last-minute requests.
A well-presented tenanted home can sell well to investors. A poorly-presented one will only attract bargain hunters. Consider a small rent reduction in exchange for excellent presentation during the campaign.
Be straightforward about the trade. You are asking someone to keep their home tidy for strangers, leave for open homes, and live with the knowledge that they may have to move. A rent reduction for the campaign period, a professional clean before photography, and a genuine thank-you at the end are not generosity — they are the cheapest marketing spend available to you. A tenant who feels respected will present the home. A tenant who feels steamrolled has a great many quiet ways to make a campaign harder.
If the property would sell better vacant, work with your tenants on a fair exit. Ending a tenancy because the property is being sold with vacant possession has its own notice requirements under the Act, and the periods differ depending on the type of tenancy — check the current rules before you plan around a date. Goodwill (and a contribution to moving costs) often gets a better outcome than notice alone.
A fixed-term tenancy is the case owners most often get wrong. A fixed term does not simply end because the property is sold — it generally runs to its end date and binds the buyer too. If you are selling mid-term, that term is part of what you are selling, and it needs to be on the table from day one.
Disclose tenancy details up front: rent, term, bond, and any known issues. Buyers who feel surprised after going unconditional become difficult buyers — and sometimes they walk.
Put the whole tenancy pack together before the property goes live: the tenancy agreement, the current rent and review history, the bond lodgement, the most recent inspection reports, and your healthy homes compliance statement. Healthy homes obligations are the one that catches investor-vendors out most often, because a buyer's lawyer will ask for the compliance position and an incomplete answer immediately reads as risk to be discounted.
Final tip: include the most recent rental appraisal or rent roll in your marketing pack. Investor buyers want yield numbers ready, not assumed.
Give them the real numbers rather than the flattering ones — actual rent, actual rates, actual insurance, actual body corporate levies if any. An investor is going to build that spreadsheet regardless. If your pack builds it for them honestly, you look like a straight vendor and you keep control of the story. If they build it themselves and find the number is worse than implied, you have handed them a reason to renegotiate.