You’ve just completed your sleek new BTR or co-living building. The paint is fresh, the landscaping pristine, and your listing is live. But the phones aren’t ringing. Weeks pass. Your occupancy is crawling, and suddenly you’re offering 8–10 weeks of free rent just to get people through the door.
This is the story playing out across Australia’s emerging rental housing sector.
It shouldn’t be.
On paper, Build-to-Rent and Co-living projects promise operational efficiency and yield stability. But in reality, many are hemorrhaging cash from the moment they open, not because of market conditions, but because of how they arrive in the market.
The uncomfortable truth? Extended rent-free periods aren’t a reflection of weak demand. They’re a symptom of weak planning.
The Myth of the Market
There’s a tendency in real estate to blame the external: the economy, interest rates, oversupply. But look closely at the projects giving away months of free rent, and you’ll find a consistent pattern. Leasing begins late. The brand is invisible. The team is reactive. And the building, while well-funded, isn’t ready to perform.
Meanwhile, top-performing projects lease up in half the time, often at stronger rents, without resorting to giveaways. They’re not playing the same game. They’ve started much earlier and thought much further ahead.
1. Pre-Lease Like You Mean It
Waiting until practical completion to start marketing is a strategic misstep. The most successful operators treat pre-leasing like a product launch. That means activating a digital presence 3 to 6 months ahead of completion, long before the first room is ready.
A simple microsite with renders and virtual tours can generate interest. Conditional leasing agreements can convert that interest into commitments. And a staged display suite, even in a rough shell, can turn curiosity into clarity.
When done well, residents are lined up before the building is handed over. Opening day becomes move-in day.
2. Build Brand Before You Build Walls
In BTR and co-living, you’re not just leasing space. You’re inviting people into a lifestyle, a rhythm, a community. That requires trust and trust is built over time, not overnight.
Projects that create early buzz do so by engaging the local ecosystem. They activate brand stories through social media, partnerships with local businesses, and on-site events. They make themselves known before the hoarding comes down.
By launch, the brand is familiar. Prospects aren’t encountering a stranger, they’re being welcomed by a neighbour.
3. Track Velocity, Not Just Volume
Leasing success isn’t just about leads. It’s about how quickly those leads move from enquiry to inspection to lease to move-in.
Sophisticated operators track this velocity daily. They use dashboards to flag which unit types are lagging, adjust pricing in real time, and shift marketing dollars to where they’re most effective. It’s a surgical approach, not a spray-and-pray.
If you’re not watching your velocity, you’re likely reacting with incentives too late when momentum is already lost.
4. Design for Speed and Scale
Often, leasing delays are embedded long before the leasing team arrives. Poorly planned units, inflexible layouts, and clunky handovers slow down inspections and frustrate potential tenants.
Buildings designed with leasing and operations in mind perform better. That means uniform units that are easy to turn. Amenity spaces that double as marketing assets. Storage for move-ins. A ground-floor office for your team. A layout that supports flow, not friction.
Form without function is expensive.
5. Make On-Site Leasing a Priority
There’s no substitute for presence. Especially in co-living, where the emotional decision to join a shared environment often hinges on trust and hospitality, a skilled on-site leasing team can triple conversion rates.
They build rapport. They host inspections after hours. They walk residents through the lifestyle, not just the layout. And they offer real-time feedback to inform strategy.
If you’re outsourcing leasing to remote agents or managing it offsite, you’re leaving value on the table.
The Bottom Line
Ten weeks of free rent might solve a short-term leasing problem. But it creates a long-term revenue problem.
These incentives erode NOI. They delay stabilisation. They set poor expectations for renewals. And they signal to the market and to investors that the project isn’t quite working.
The better path isn’t easy, but it’s proven.
Start early. Build brand. Design smarter. Lease faster.
Because in this space, your leasing strategy is your revenue strategy.
