Things people forget to check
before buying an investment property.
A PM's honest list.

Daria Tedling

Director and Founder, Local Property Partners

17 April 2026

Over the last five years I have managed upwards of 600 investment properties across Perth. I have seen a lot of mistakes, a lot of surprises, and a lot of things that buyers wish they had known before they signed. This is not a generic property investing guide. It is the list I put together from everything I have seen on the ground, written for the person who wants to buy smart, not learn the hard way.

1 Do your numbers before you fall in love with a property

This sounds obvious. It rarely happens properly. Before you start attending home opens, sit down with your accountant and work out what the investment actually needs to deliver. What yield are you targeting? What are you prepared to carry if the property is vacant for four weeks? What does negative gearing actually mean for your tax position in your specific circumstances?

Get an independent rental appraisal from a property manager who operates in that suburb before you make an offer not from the selling agent, who has an interest in the sale proceeding. The appraisal should be based on comparable properties that have recently leased, not on what the market was doing two years ago.

Just this week I heard of a sales agent appraising a property at $800 per week when the suburb median is $675 and the property was entirely average for the area. That is a $125 per week difference. Annualised, that is $6,500. If you build your investment decision around that number and then find out what the property actually rents for, your whole cash flow projection falls apart. A sales agent's job is to sell the property. An independent rental appraisal from a property manager who leases in that suburb every week costs you nothing and tells you what the market will actually pay.

Build in a buffer. Maintenance will come up. Things you did not notice at the inspection will surface. Vacancy periods happen. If your numbers only work when everything goes perfectly, your numbers do not work.

One more thing worth saying honestly: if you do not have a buffer, an older property may not be the right choice. Older homes carry more maintenance risk. If something goes wrong with the plumbing, the roof, the hot water system, or the wiring, you need to be able to cover it without it becoming a crisis. If your cash position is tight, a new or near-new property is worth serious consideration. Lower maintenance risk, better energy efficiency, and tenants generally prefer them. The numbers might look slightly different but the predictability is worth something.

The honest answer is that most people go into their first investment property with a view already formed. I want an older house I can fix up, or I want something established in a suburb I know. Sometimes that is exactly right. Sometimes it is not. A financial adviser and a buyer's agent who specialises in investment property will look at your situation, your cash position, your tax circumstances, and your goals, and tell you what structure actually suits you. That conversation might confirm what you already had in mind. Or it might open up options you had not considered, like a new build, a house and land package, co-living, or a dual-income property. The Perth market has more investment structures available now than it ever has. Going in with a plan built around your actual situation is always going to beat going in with a preference and fitting the numbers around it afterwards.

When you are doing the numbers, make sure you are working from net yield, not gross. Gross yield is annual rent divided by purchase price. Net yield is what is left after rates, insurance, property management fees, maintenance, and vacancy. A property showing 5% gross can easily return 3% or less net once all costs are factored in. That is the number that matters for your cash flow.

2 Research the property and the suburb properly

This goes beyond looking at recent sale prices. You want to understand the rental demand in that specific street, not just the suburb median. A suburb can have a 1.5% vacancy rate overall while a particular pocket of it sits empty for six weeks because of oversupply from a new development.

Check days on market for rentals in the area. Look at what properties are currently listed for and how long they have been sitting. Think about who your tenant will be and whether the property genuinely suits them.

Think about suitability for a rental specifically. A beautiful property that is difficult to maintain, has a huge garden, or needs constant attention will attract fewer tenants and more turnover. Low-maintenance properties with good inclusions tend to attract better tenants and hold them longer.

When you attend the home open, look beyond the property itself. Walk the street. Note what is around it. Government housing nearby can affect your tenant pool and your vacancy rate, if your next door neighbour is a social housing property, it is worth knowing before you buy, not after your first tenants move out. Check whether there are any commercial uses, busy roads, or other factors that a tenant would notice immediately but that might not be obvious from the listing photos. The things that make a property harder to rent are rarely disclosed by the selling agent. You have to look for them yourself.

3 Do a proper property risk assessment

This is one of the most consistently skipped steps, and it is one of the most important. Before you commit to a property I would run desktop checks across all of the following:

The title search is non-negotiable. Easements can restrict what you do with the property. Caveats mean someone else has a registered interest in it. Notifications can include things like contamination notices or building restrictions that will follow the property regardless of who owns it. Your settlement agent will do a title search but make sure you actually read it rather than just signing off on it.

Unapproved structures are a specific issue that catches people out. If there is a shed, patio, extension, granny flat, or carport on the property, check whether it has council approval. As a property manager I am not required to run council permit searches but visually I will note what is there and flag anything that looks like it was not part of the original build. As a buyer, it is worth asking the question directly and getting the answer in writing.

One thing worth understanding about the disclosure process: selling agents are only required to disclose what they know. If a vendor has not told the agent something, or if the agent has not done their own checks thoroughly, that information may never reach you. Agents do have a duty to make their own enquiries and not just rely on what the vendor tells them, but in practice the depth of those checks varies, and if a piece of information could negatively affect the sale, there is not always a strong incentive to surface it.

I had a client last year who purchased an investment property interstate. I had not been to the suburb before. When I arrived to do the rental appraisal, both neighbouring properties were in complete disarray, rubbish covering the lawns, windows boarded up. That is a genuine and direct impact on vacancy. It affects who applies, how long it sits, and what rent you can realistically achieve. Nobody had mentioned it. It is a simple question to ask: is there government housing next door? But you have to ask it, and you have to go and see for yourself. Do not rely on photos and do not assume that what has not been disclosed does not exist.

4 When you are ready to make an offer

A few things that frequently get missed or done badly at the offer stage.

Building and pest inspection scope it properly

A half hour home open where the sales agent is talking at you and ten other buyers are walking around is not enough time to properly assess a property. You do not get to test things. You can be completely blinded by hired furniture and good staging and walk straight past water damage, rust, things that are not working, things that have been patched over. The building and pest inspection is your chance to have someone who is working for you, not the vendor, go through the property properly with no time pressure and no distractions.

Get one. But more importantly, make sure your B&P clause covers the entire property not just the main dwelling. The clause should explicitly include all structures on the property: the shed, the carport, the patio, the granny flat if there is one. A standard B&P that only covers the house can leave you with a shed full of termites that is not covered by your clause.

Read the report. Do not just check whether it says "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory." A B&P report will always find something. The question is whether what it finds is cosmetic, manageable, or a genuine problem. Get the inspector to walk you through it if you are not sure.

Electrical safety check

A B&P does not cover the electrical system. If the property is older or you have any reason to suspect the wiring, consider an independent electrical safety check as a condition of the contract or arrange one after settlement before tenants move in. Any good property manager will require an electrical safety inspection at the commencement of management anyway, so it is worth getting ahead of it. If issues are found, you want to know before you have a tenant waiting to move in, not after.

Finance clause

Getting finance pre-approval before you start making offers is not just about protecting yourself, it is a genuine competitive advantage. A pre-approved buyer with a slightly lower offer will often beat an unapproved buyer at a higher price, because the vendor knows the deal is solid. In a market where sellers want certainty, pre-approval gives you something other buyers may not have.

That said, always buy subject to finance even with pre-approval. Valuations can come in below the purchase price. Lending conditions change. Do not remove your finance clause to make your offer more competitive unless you have unconditional finance and genuinely understand the risk of doing so.

Confirm inclusions and exclusions in writing

What is staying and what is going with the property needs to be confirmed in the contract before you sign. Curtains, blinds, dishwasher, light fittings, air conditioning units and remotes, garage door openers, garden sheds none of these are automatically included unless the contract says so. Do not assume based on what you saw at the home open. A final inspection before settlement where the property is empty and stripped of everything the vendor decided to take is an unpleasant surprise. Get it in writing.

Check unpaid rates and utilities

Your settlement agent will do an adjustment of council rates, water rates, and strata levies at settlement. But check whether there are any outstanding unpaid amounts. In some circumstances these can carry over to the new owner. It is a standard part of the settlement process but worth confirming explicitly rather than assuming it has been handled.

Check NBN and internet access

Tenants increasingly treat reliable internet as non-negotiable. Check whether the property has NBN connected and what technology type and speed tier is available. Some Perth suburbs and pockets still have limited access or older technology types. This will affect your tenant pool and is worth knowing before you buy rather than advertising a property and fielding questions you cannot answer.

Working order clause

Make sure your contract includes a clause requiring all fixtures and fittings to be in working order at settlement. This includes appliances, air conditioning, hot water systems, garage doors, pool equipment if applicable. Without this clause you have limited recourse if something stops working between the inspection and settlement day.

Keys for every lock

At settlement you should receive a key for every lock on the property. Every external door, every window lock, every padlock on a shed or gate. However, be prepared for this not to happen. Selling contracts can include clauses that only require the vendor to provide one front door key at settlement, and this is more common than most buyers realise. It is a standard clause across many agencies. If you do not push back on it before you sign, you may settle with a single key and no recourse. This is one of the clearest examples of the difference between buying and renting. When you buy a property you are buying it as is, under contract law. When you rent it out, you are immediately subject to the Residential Tenancies Act and its regulations, which require you to provide every tenant on the lease with a key for every lock on the property. Those are two different sets of rules, and the gap between them is your problem to solve. Know before you settle what keys exist and what you are entitled to under your contract, and negotiate accordingly.

Settlement agent

Choose your own settlement agent or conveyancer do not use the one the selling agent recommends unless you have independently verified they are good. Your settlement agent is working for you. They should be someone you can call and get a straight answer from, not someone processing paperwork in the background.

5 Compliance what the property needs to be rentable

This is where a lot of buyers get a surprise. A property can be perfectly fine as an owner-occupied home and still require work before it can be legally tenanted. The main areas to check:

Minimum security standards

Under the Residential Tenancies Regulations 1989, all WA rental properties must meet minimum security standards. Specifically:

If the property does not already meet these standards, you will need to arrange upgrades before a tenancy can commence. Factor this into your purchase costs. A property with old-style lever locks on external doors and no security screens will need work. Source: WA Consumer Protection

Smoke alarms

WA requires interconnected smoke alarms to be installed in all rental properties. They must be hardwired or powered by a non-removable 10-year battery, positioned on or near the ceiling in the correct locations. If the property has old-style battery smoke alarms, these will need to be upgraded. Your PM will check this as part of the pre-tenancy inspection but it is better to know the cost before you buy.

RCDs

At least two residual current devices must be installed in every WA rental property protecting all power and lighting circuits. Many older Perth homes do not have this. An electrician can confirm compliance and install if needed. Again factor the cost in before you make your offer, not after.

Blind cord safety

Any looped or free-hanging blind cords must be secured or replaced to meet safety requirements. This is a quick and cheap fix but it needs to be done.

Swimming pool

If the property has a pool, a current pool barrier compliance certificate is required before the property can be tenanted. Pool inspections need to be arranged through a licensed inspector. If the barrier is non-compliant, the cost of rectification can be significant depending on what needs to change.

6 Buying a tenanted property a different checklist entirely

If the property already has tenants, the due diligence list changes. You are not just buying a property, you are also inheriting a tenancy. Here is what to check before you make an offer, not after.

Get advice from a property manager before you put in your offer on a tenanted property. A PM can review the lease and ledger and tell you things that a buying agent or real estate agent may not flag. For example if the rent has not been reviewed in two years and is sitting well below market, you need to understand the minimum notice requirements before you can increase it, and factor that into your cash flow projections.

If there is no PCR on file, or the one that exists is poor quality, that is a risk you need to price in. At the end of that tenancy, your ability to claim bond money for damage depends almost entirely on the quality of the ingoing PCR. If it is inadequate, you may have limited recourse.

7 Strata if buying a unit, apartment or townhouse

If you are buying a unit, apartment, or townhouse in a strata scheme, the due diligence list expands significantly. The property is not just the four walls you are buying, it is also a share in the common property and a share in the strata company's financial position. That company's health matters as much as the property itself.

Request the last two to three years of strata meeting minutes before you make an offer. Read them properly. You are looking for recurring maintenance issues, disputes between owners, major works that have been discussed or deferred, and the general tone of how the scheme is being managed. A well-run strata has clear minutes, prompt action on maintenance, and a healthy sinking fund. A poorly run one has arguments, deferred works, and barely enough money to replace a light bulb.

Check the sinking fund balance. This is the reserve fund held for major capital works, roof replacement, external painting, common area repairs. A depleted sinking fund in a building with ageing infrastructure is a serious red flag. If the fund is low and the building needs work, a special levy will be called and every owner pays. Find out before you buy what the fund holds and what it should hold. Ask whether any special levies have been raised recently or are being discussed. Factor strata fees into your net yield calculation, not just the management fee and rates.

8 A few more things to check

This catches people out more often than you would expect. At the home open the property looks a certain way, spa in the backyard, curtains on every window, dishwasher in the kitchen. You make your offer on the basis of what you saw. Then you do your final inspection before settlement and the spa is gone, the curtains are gone, and the dishwasher has been taken out of the wall.

Sellers are entitled to take anything that is not specifically included in the contract. Curtains and blinds, dishwashers, freestanding spa baths, garden sheds, split system remotes, light fittings, all of these can walk out the door unless your contract says otherwise. Specify in your contract exactly what is staying and what is going. If you saw it at the home open and you want it there at settlement, it needs to be listed as an inclusion. Do not assume. Do not rely on a verbal agreement. Put it in writing.

This matters doubly for an investment property. If you are planning to lease the property with certain inclusions and those items disappear before settlement, you either need to replace them before your tenant moves in or renegotiate the lease. Neither is a good way to start.

9 Insurance

Two policies, both essential.

Building insurance covers the structure of the property. Make sure the sum insured reflects the rebuild cost, not the market value these are not the same number. Get this in place at or before settlement.

Landlord insurance covers loss of rent, tenant default, malicious damage, and liability. Read the Product Disclosure Statement carefully before you buy not all policies are created equal and some exclude coverage for certain property types or tenant situations. Many standard policies also exclude self-managed properties, so if you are planning to manage the property yourself, check that your policy explicitly covers that.

10 Appointing a property manager you can trust

This decision matters more than most buyers realise. The right property manager will protect your investment, keep you informed, and manage compliance on your behalf. The wrong one will cost you money in missed rent increases, poor tenant selection, and maintenance that gets ignored until it becomes expensive.

Do not just go with whoever the selling agent recommends. Ask around. Check Google reviews and look for responses to those reviews how an agency handles negative feedback tells you a lot about how they handle problems. Look for a manager who specialises in property management rather than one where it is a secondary service to a sales business.

Meet the person who will actually manage your property before you sign anything. Ask them how many properties they manage, how they handle maintenance, what their rent review process looks like, and what happens if a tenant stops paying. If the answers are vague, keep looking.

The reality check

Here is the thing nobody tells you clearly enough before you buy your first investment property: there will always be something. The B&P will find issues. The first routine inspection will flag maintenance. A tenant will leave and the outgoing inspection will reveal something you did not expect. That is not a sign that something has gone wrong. That is just what owning a rental property is.

The investors who handle it well are the ones who went in with their eyes open, did the due diligence properly, built in a financial buffer, and chose a property manager they trust to tell them the truth. The ones who struggle are the ones who were surprised by the normal costs of ownership because they were never told what to expect.

This list does not guarantee a problem-free investment. Nothing does. But it will mean that when something comes up and it will you are not dealing with a surprise you could have seen coming.

Common questions

Do I need to fix compliance issues before the property settles?

Not necessarily compliance issues like RCDs and smoke alarms need to be in place before a tenancy commences, not before settlement. But you should know about them before you buy so you can factor the cost in. Do not assume the property is rent-ready just because it has been someone's home.

What is the biggest mistake first-time investment property buyers make?

In my experience it is doing the numbers on optimistic assumptions market rent, no vacancy, no maintenance. The numbers need to work on conservative assumptions. If they only work when everything goes well, they do not really work.

Should I use a buyer's agent?

For an investment property, a good buyer's agent who understands the rental market can be genuinely useful, particularly if you are buying in a suburb you do not know well. They work for you, not the vendor. Whether the cost is worth it depends on your situation and how much time you have to do the research yourself.

Can I self-manage my investment property?

You can. WA does not require you to use a licensed property manager. But compliance is your responsibility, and the rules are detailed and change regularly. If you do self-manage, read the Residential Tenancies Act carefully and check your landlord insurance policy explicitly covers self-managed properties. See our self-managing landlord guide for more.