If you believe everything interest groups tell you, the answer is pet-friendly properties for renters, and lush lawns for buyers.

Pro-feline organisation Australian National Cats says landlords who refuse creatures other than fish in rental properties are missing out on maximising a home’s full investment potential.

The organisation’s spokesman, veterinarian Peter Higgins, says with two-thirds of Australian households possessing a pet, the nation had one of the world’s highest rates of pet ownership, but renters tended to have trouble finding a place that would allow them.

For buyers, lawns were said to be in demand, so much so that those in the market for a home were prepared to pay quite a bit more for a nice bit of turf.

This notion can be taken with a grain of salt seeing as it’s derived from data, released this week (13 feb), gleaned from a study conducted by a turf industry body, Turf Australia. It also has a small sample size: 114 real estate agents around the nation. They were polled between November 11 last year and January 2012 this year.

There are no figures for Canberra per se – real estate agents were polled in Canberra, but the quantity of agents polled did not warrant a release of its own figures and the results were combined with those of New South Wales.

The study found that in Sydney, where the average house price was $440,000, a good lawn could add $83,600 of value. In Melbourne, buyers were willing to pay $79,800 more on an average home costing $420,000.

According to Tenants’ Union ACT executive officer Deb Pippen, tenants may well want certain things, but given the supply-demand equation, they often had to settle for what was there.

‘‘There’s room for buyers to choose, but in a rental market people say, ‘That’s all I can get’. [What people want] is a difficult question in this market because there isn’t that much choice, there aren’t that many properties out there and often people will take what they can get.’’

Above and beyond a home that was secure, sound and habitable, people were always willing to pay more for better amenities, better locations and particular elements to a property above and beyond what would normally be expected.

Pippen says those looking to increase the potential of a home should consider improving its energy efficiency.
Some people were interested in a prospective property’s efficiency rating, not necessarily out of environmental interests, but because they wanted to be comfortable, without hefty bills.

Pippen agrees that places which allow pets will find that this a compelling factor for prospective tenants.

And not everyone was in love with lawns and greenery. Pippen says while some might want them, others could be turned off unless the responsibility for them was borne by someone else – perhaps a watering system already in place, or a gardener working at the landlord’s expense.