Selling a tenanted property is a tenancy problem first.

A sales agent meets your tenant for the first time on the day they need access to show buyers. I start with the lease, the inspection history and the tenant already on the phone, because managing Perth tenancies is what I do the rest of the year.

If I already manage the property, better still. You do not have to be a client for this to be the right way to sell a rental.

Can you sell with tenants in it? Your lease decides

Most vendors find this out three weeks in. Whether you can sell with vacant possession, when a campaign can start, and whether you have any choice at all, is set by what your tenancy is doing right now. Tap what applies.

You cannot get it empty on notice

A sale is not a ground for ending a fixed term early. No notice period exists for it. Vacant possession needs the written agreement of every tenant, a court order, or a breach. That sounds like a wall and it is usually a negotiation.

Sell it tenanted. A lease in place with a good tenant is an asset to an investor buyer, who gets income from settlement rather than a reletting campaign.
Or ask the tenants for an early surrender. This is where two years of repairs done properly turns into a yes, often for a modest incentive and help with their moving dates.
Or run the campaign so settlement lands after the term ends, and sell with vacant possession on a longer settlement.
Which of those is worth most depends on the property, and it is the first thing I will model for you.

Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (WA). A fixed term ends early only by written agreement of all parties, by court order, or on a breach.

Thirty days, from the end of the term

You can end a fixed term at or after its end date with 30 days written notice on a Form 1C. So the end date is the fixed point and everything else gets worked backwards from it.

Decide first whether you are selling vacant or tenanted, because that decides whether the notice goes out at all.
Presentation works are far easier done after the tenant leaves, so those weeks want to be in the plan rather than discovered.
A campaign can start while the property is still tenanted if the tenant is willing, which brings settlement forward by a month or more.
Renewing on a short periodic rather than a new fixed term keeps your options open. Worth deciding before the renewal goes out, not after.

Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (WA) section 64, Form 1C.

Two routes, and the order matters

If the home is already sold and the contract requires vacant possession, that is 30 days on a Form 1C. If you want it empty before you list, that is a termination without grounds and it is 60 days.

Selling first and serving the 30 days afterwards keeps the rent running through the whole campaign and carries no vacancy risk.
Emptying it first gets you a presented, photographable, walk-through-anytime property, and costs you the rent plus outgoings for as long as it takes.
Which one wins is a straight arithmetic question on your property and I will do it with you.
Termination without grounds is currently available and is under reform, so it is not something to build a plan around for next year.

Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (WA), Form 1C. Notice periods are minimums and the notice has to be served correctly to run.

The cleanest run available

Notice is given, or the break is approved, so you already know the date. No termination to serve and no negotiation to have. This is the best position a tenanted property can be sold from.

Book the presentation works into the gap between vacate and campaign rather than after the photographer.
The final inspection and the sale prep are the same walk through the property, so they happen together.
Tell me before the bond is disbursed. Some things worth fixing for a sale are also things worth claiming.
If the vacate date and your ideal settlement are a long way apart, a short periodic tenancy in between is sometimes better than an empty house.

Nothing is in your way

No notice, no access to negotiate, no tenant to work around. The only question left is the one that always mattered, which is what it is worth and how the campaign is run.

Every week empty costs you rent plus outgoings, so the pressure is real. It is still smaller than the cost of a stale listing.
Presentation works go in now, before photography, not after the first home open.
If the campaign is going to take a while, a short lease is worth pricing against the vacancy.

I already have it

I hold your agreement, your ledger, your inspections and your condition report. So this is a question I can answer today rather than one you need to go and research.

Ask me and I will come back with the end date, the notice that applies, and what each route does to your net result.
Bring the question early. The best options on this page all need lead time, and the worst one is finding out in week three of a campaign.
There is no obligation attached to asking, and no appointment to sign to get an answer.

Notice to end a tenancy for a sale: 30 days, 60 days, or not at all

There is no notice a landlord can serve that ends a fixed term early because they want to sell. That is not a technicality, it is the single fact that decides how a sale gets run, and it is why the relationship with your tenant turns out to be worth money.

Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (WA), Form 1C. Checked against Consumer Protection Western Australia in September 2026. No grounds termination is currently available and is under reform, so the routes recommended on this page are the co-operative ones, which do not depend on it. Notice periods are minimums and the notice has to be correctly served to count.

The four ways to sell a tenanted property in Perth

Perth runs on private treaty. That does not make it automatically right for your property, and the difference between these is mostly about who carries the risk of getting the price wrong.

01Set price, open ended

A price on the listing and no closing date. The most common way a Perth property is sold. It is comfortable for buyers, it is easy to understand, and it has one failure mode: if the price is wrong nothing happens, and every week of nothing makes the property look like the problem. Best where the value is easy to establish and the property is one of several similar.

02Set price with offers closing

A price, plus a date and time by which offers are due. Buyers know what it costs and they know they cannot sit on it. This is what I use most, because it creates a deadline without creating the uncertainty of no price at all, and it concentrates the enquiry into a fortnight instead of spreading it over two months.

03Offers by a date, no price

A deadline and a range, or no guide at all. Useful when the property is genuinely hard to price because nothing comparable has sold, and dangerous when it is not, because buyers who cannot price it often will not bother turning up. Works at the top of the market and rarely below it.

04Auction

A small share of Perth sales, and the share has stayed small for a reason. It suits a property where there is likely to be real competition and the value is contested, and it suits a seller who can live with an unconditional result on the day. On most suburban stock in this market it adds cost and pressure without adding buyers.

Build your campaign

Answer three things about the property and this will tell you how I would sell it and what the marketing would cost. Then change whatever you disagree with and watch the number move.

What do you expect it to be worth?

Who buys a property like yours?

Will it be tenanted during the campaign?

The marketing I would recommend

Ticked is what I would spend on your property. Untick anything you disagree with. The three at the top are not optional, and I will say so if you untick them.

Photography and floorplan

$630

Twenty five images and a measured floorplan. This is what decides whether a buyer clicks at all, so it is not a line to save on.

Copywriting and signboard

$410

The listing copy and the board out the front. The board still generates enquiry from people who were not looking.

realestate.com.au, Premiere Unlimited

$1,889

The listing itself, at our contracted rate. Premiere Unlimited runs before the property is on market, through the campaign and after it sells. This is not a line you can decline, because a property that is not on realestate.com.au is not on the market.

Video and aerial

$450

A walkthrough and a drone pass. Earns its place where the block, the outlook or the position is doing work the photos cannot show.

Virtual styling

$390

Furniture added to the photographs. The only styling available while a tenant is living there, and it has to be disclosed as virtual.

Physical styling, six weeks

$2,900

Hired furniture through the campaign. The single biggest lever on an empty home aimed at owner occupiers, and impossible while it is tenanted.

Social campaign

$250

Paid placement to buyers in the area who are not actively searching yet. Cheap, and it is where a surprising share of enquiry comes from.

Marketing total$0

Share of the expected sale price0%

Send me this and I will price it properly Or call

Indicative only, and the portal costs in particular move with the suburb and the listing tier, so treat the total as a starting figure rather than a quote. Marketing is itemised and approved by you before anything is booked, and it is payable whether or not the property sells. Nothing here is a promise about price or about how long a property will take to sell.

What your property manager has that a sales agent does not

None of this is about being cleverer than a sales agent. It is that a sale of a tenanted property is mostly an access and timing problem, and I am already holding both.

01The tenant takes my call

Home opens need written notice and the tenant's co-operation. Consumer Protection sets no frequency cap on buyer showings the way it does for routine inspections, which means the number of opens you actually get is negotiated, not granted. A tenant who has had repairs done properly for two years says yes. One who has been ignored says the legal minimum, and your campaign runs on their terms.

02I know what is wrong with it

Every routine inspection, every repair, every photo, going back to the start of the tenancy. So the things a building inspector will find are dealt with before the campaign rather than in the middle of it, which is where they cost you a renegotiation instead of a tradesman.

03The compliance is already in order

Smoke alarms, RCDs, the pool barrier if there is one, the condition report. A buyer's representative asking for these gets them the same day rather than starting a week of chasing.

04I can sequence it against the lease

Whether the campaign starts now, at the end of the term, or after a negotiated surrender is a decision about your net result, not a scheduling inconvenience. It gets made with the lease in front of us on day one.

05Nobody is learning your property

No handover, no briefing, no second set of questions you have already answered. The appraisal starts from what I already know about the property and the tenancy.

How a tenanted property gets priced

An appraisal is a piece of reasoning, not a number. Here is the reasoning I use, so you can argue with it rather than take it on faith.

01Living area, not total building

Agents advertise total building area, which includes the garage, the alfresco and the portico. Valuation data publishes living area. The gap runs to fifty square metres and more, so a property advertised at 317 square metres can be 259 of living area. Comparing an advertised figure against a published one is the most common way an appraisal comes out wrong, and it always comes out wrong in the optimistic direction.

02Sold evidence, not asking prices

What a neighbour is asking is not evidence. An offer that fell over because the buyer could not sell their own home is not evidence either, and subject-to-sale offers typically sit several per cent above what a property is unconditionally worth. I will show you which comparables are settled sales and which are not.

03No indexing stale sales forward in a flat market

Trailing growth figures describe a market that has already happened. When listing volumes are rising and days on market are stretching, indexing a six month old sale forward at last year's growth rate produces a price that cannot be achieved and a campaign that goes stale proving it.

04The automated valuation, up front

You can pull an algorithmic estimate on your own property in thirty seconds, so I would rather hand you mine and explain the difference than wait to be asked. They cannot see the build year, the pool, or which side of the park the block sits on. Sometimes they are low for a reason. Sometimes they are right and the reason is uncomfortable.

05The real cost of overpricing is the listing going stale

Carrying an empty property for a few extra weeks is a known, small number. A listing that sits, gets a price reduction and then sells under pressure typically costs several per cent, which on most Perth investment stock is many times the holding cost. That is why I will argue with you about the list price and not about the holding cost.

Commission and marketing costs

Published for the same reason the management fees are published. You should not have to ask, and you should be able to compare it before you talk to me.

Commission: Set on the property and the campaign. The range is where almost everything lands, and I will tell you which end yours is at and why before you appoint me.; 1.6% to 2.2% + GST
Marketing: The realestate.com.au listing is $1,889 including GST and is fixed, because a property that is not on it is not on the market. Photography, floorplan, copy and signboard on top of that. Video and aerial where the property earns it. Itemised before anything is booked.; From $2,929 incl GST
Presentation works: Paint, gardens, a clean, minor repairs. Quoted and approved by you individually. I will tell you which ones return more than they cost and which ones do not.; At cost
Management during the campaign: If the property is still tenanted it is still being managed, so the management fee continues as normal. Nothing extra is charged for the work of running a sale on top.; Unchanged
If it does not sell: No commission. You have paid for the marketing you approved, and nothing else.; No commission

Commission is charged on the sale price and payable at settlement. The appointment is in writing, and you get it to read before you sign it rather than on the bonnet of a car. Nothing on this page is a promise about price or about how long a property will take to sell.

Questions landlords ask about selling with tenants in place

Do I have to tell my tenant I am selling?

Yes, and it is better coming early and from me than discovered when a signboard goes up.

A tenant who hears it first, understands what it does and does not mean for them, and is asked rather than told about home open times, will usually work with you. A tenant who finds out from a listing on a portal will give you the legal minimum on everything from that day forward, and on a tenanted sale the legal minimum is genuinely expensive.

Can I sell with the tenant still in it?

Yes, and sometimes you should. A property likely to appeal to an owner-occupier almost always presents better empty. One that will be bought by an investor can sell better with a good tenant and a lease already running, because the buyer gets income from settlement instead of a reletting campaign and a vacancy.

It is a real decision with a number attached, not a default. I will put both cases to you on your property before you list.

How many home opens will there be, and can my tenant refuse?

Showing the home to buyers needs written notice to the tenant. Entry is between 8am and 6pm on a weekday, 9am and 5pm on a Saturday, or any other time the tenant agrees to.

Consumer Protection sets a cap of four routine inspections a year but does not set one for buyer showings, so in practice the number of opens you get is a negotiation rather than an entitlement. That is the unglamorous reason a manager who has treated your tenant properly is worth something at exactly this moment.

What happens to the bond and the rent during the campaign?

Rent keeps being collected and disbursed as normal, and the bond is unaffected by the property being on the market. It stays with the Bond Administrator and is dealt with at the end of the tenancy in the usual way.

If the tenancy is ending as part of the sale, the final inspection and the sale preparation are the same walk through the property, so tell me before the bond is disbursed. Some of what is worth fixing for a buyer is also worth claiming.

Do I pay management fees while it is being sold?

If it is still tenanted, it is still being managed, so the management fee runs as normal. Nothing extra is charged for the work of running the sale on top of it.

There is no separate fee for the appraisal, for the price research, or for talking it through and deciding not to sell.

What if I would rather use a sales specialist?

Then use one, and I will hand over everything I have: the agreement, the ledger, the condition report, every inspection and every repair, and an introduction to your tenant so the access conversation starts warm.

There is no lock-in on the management and there is none on the sale either. I would rather you sold well with someone else than badly with me.

Does selling mean I lose my management?

Only for that property, and only at settlement. If you own others they carry on exactly as they are.

A fair few owners sell one and buy another. If that is the plan, tell me early, because the timing of the two is worth thinking about together rather than one after the other.

What if it does not sell?

No commission. Commission is charged on the sale price and paid at settlement, so if there is no sale there is nothing to pay. You will have paid for the marketing you approved and nothing beyond it.

If the property comes off the market and goes back to being an investment, it goes back to being managed, and we will have learned a good deal about what it is actually worth.

Why is the commission a range?

Because the work is not the same on every property. A straightforward sale of a tenanted townhouse with a co-operative tenant is not the same job as a campaign that needs presentation works, a negotiated surrender and a longer settlement to line up.

You will be told which end of the range yours sits at, and why, before you appoint me rather than after.

Start with the lease, not the listing.

Tell me you are thinking about it and I will come back with what your tenancy allows, what the property is worth on settled evidence, and the three ways it could be run. No appointment, no obligation, and if the answer is that you should wait eight months, I will tell you that.

Ask me what it is worth Or call 0422 238 434

Local Property Partners, licence RA85442, ABN 48 582 232 398. Daria Tedling is a licensed real estate agent in Western Australia. This page is for owners whose property is under Local Property Partners management. The tenancy timeframes described here are drawn from the Residential Tenancies Act 1987 (WA) and Consumer Protection guidance current at September 2026, and are general information about how the Act works rather than legal advice about your tenancy or your sale. Nothing here is a representation about the price a property will achieve or the time it will take to sell. For advice about your circumstances, call Consumer Protection on 1300 30 40 54.