When your lease ends matters more than how long it runs
Almost every landlord has an opinion on lease length. Six months or twelve, fixed or periodic, lock it in or stay flexible. Far fewer have ever looked at the other number the same decision produces, which is the date the lease expires. That date decides which market your property walks back into. It is set once, at signing, usually by someone thinking about something else.
The number nobody chooses
A twelve month lease signed in December ends in December. Sign the same lease in February and it ends in February. Same property, same term, same tenant quality, but a completely different set of people looking at it when it comes back to market.
This sounds obvious written down. In practice it almost never gets discussed, because the conversation at signing is about the term. Twelve months feels standard, so twelve months is what gets written. The expiry date is whatever falls out of that.
Why the month matters
Rental demand in Sydney is not flat across the year. The weeks either side of Christmas are the quietest stretch in the leasing calendar. People are away, they are not moving house, they are not booking Saturday inspections. A property that becomes available in that window is competing for a much smaller pool of tenants than the same property would attract in a busier month.
That has three consequences, all of which compound. The property sits longer, so you carry more vacant days. You have fewer applications, so you have less choice about who moves in. And you are negotiating from the weaker position, which is where an asking rent quietly slips.
None of that is a rule. It is not a promise about any particular property either. It is the shape of the year as we see it across the homes we manage, consistent enough to plan around.
Not sure how this plays out for your property? A quick call gives you a straight answer.
How to move an expiry date
The fix is unglamorous. You use a term that is not a round number.
If a lease would otherwise expire in the third week of December, a fourteen month term instead of twelve moves it into February. A ten month term instead of twelve moves it out of a bad month in the other direction. Tenants very rarely object, because the length of the term is not usually what they care about. A two month difference costs them nothing.
The place to do this is at the start, when the lease is first drawn, or at the first renewal. Trying to fix it later is harder, because by then you are working around a notice period that is already running.
What a good run-up looks like
Whatever month a lease ends in, the outcome is largely decided before it gets there. The work happens in the ninety days beforehand: understanding what comparable homes are actually leasing for rather than what they are advertised at, making a clear renew-or-re-let recommendation early enough that there is time to act on it, then having photography, listing copy and the first inspection ready before the property is empty rather than after.
Done that way, a lease ending in an average month behaves like one ending in a good month. Left until the last few weeks, a lease ending in a good month can still leave you carrying an empty property.
Worth checking on your own property
- Find the expiry date on your current lease, not the start date
- If it lands between mid November and the end of January, plan to move it at the next renewal
- Ask for the renewal recommendation ninety days out, not thirty
- Treat an odd term as a normal option, because a fourteen month lease is not a strange thing to offer
- Make the marketing ready before the property is vacant, so an empty week is never a preparation week
How we handle it
We look at the expiry date when a lease is first drawn, not when it is about to run out, then suggest an unusual term where it moves the property into a better month. From ninety days out we review the rent against what is leasing nearby, we come to you with a clear recommendation at sixty days, then we prepare the listing before the property is empty rather than after.
Not sure when your lease ends?
Send us the address. We will tell you the expiry date, what that month usually looks like for leasing, plus whether it is worth shifting the next term to move it.