If you own a rental property, the garden is easy to forget about. It sits outside the lease conversations, and most owners leave it to the tenant. But a growing number of the owners we work with have made a smart move: they pay for fortnightly garden maintenance themselves and fold it into the tenancy. Here is why that pays off.
Tenants love it, and they stay longer
A tenant who does not have to mow, edge and weed every other weekend is a happy tenant. It is a genuine perk that makes your property stand out from the one down the road, and happy tenants renew. Every renewal saves you the real costs of turnover: advertising, cleaning, re-letting fees and the weeks of lost rent while the property sits empty. A well-presented home is also more attractive to new renters when you do need to advertise, which keeps vacancy short.
It supports a higher rent per week
Presentation drives rent. A tidy lawn and cared-for garden lift the kerb appeal that renters judge a property on in the first ten seconds. Including a maintained garden lets you position the property a notch above comparable listings, and many owners find the rent uplift more than covers the cost of the service.
No clean-up scramble between tenants
This is the one owners feel most. When a tenant moves out and the garden has been left to its own devices, there is usually a costly one-off clean-up before the next tenant can move in, and that work holds up the changeover. When the garden has been maintained fortnightly the whole time, there is no downtime and no clean-up bill. The property is ready to re-let the day it is vacant.
The cost is generally tax-deductible
For an investment property, lawn mowing and garden maintenance are normally an immediate tax deduction in the year you pay for them, claimed in full against your rental income. It is one of the more straightforward rental expenses. Everyone’s situation is different, so confirm the detail with your accountant, but for most owners it means the real, after-tax cost of keeping the garden tidy is lower than the sticker price.
Hands-off and reliable
We run our own fortnightly schedule, so once you are set up there is nothing to manage. We turn up when we said we would, keep the lawns, edges and garden beds in shape, and the tenant never has to chase anyone. You get a tidy property, a happy tenant and one less thing to think about.
How it works
We look after rental gardens across Adelaide’s inner north on a reliable fortnightly schedule, with clear fixed-price quoting and no surprises. If you own a rental and want the garden taken care of on behalf of your tenants, request a quote and we will sort out the rest.
Want a tidy lawn without the weekend work? We look after homes across Adelaide’s inner north on a reliable weekly or fortnightly schedule.
Request a free quote