Vacancy Checks Before You Advertise a Room

A website that says Available while a student is still sleeping in the bed is not marketing. It is a future argument. ManjeProp listings on manjeprop.co.za are published from the Properties record in PropertyCare. Publication is a decision a person makes after looking at the room, not after looking at a calendar.

This is the check we expect before anyone hits publish.

A booking row is not an empty room

The desk can hold a booking, an end date and a notice. None of those prove the wardrobe is empty. People overstay. Sublets appear. A “friend on the couch” becomes a second occupant. Confirm vacancy in the building.

Walk the unit. Open the cupboards. Check the bathroom for a second toothbrush. Look at the gate remote count. If someone is still in occupation, the listing stays off or stays marked occupied, even if a WhatsApp promised Friday.

Confirming a booking on the desk can mark a unit occupied and change what the public site shows. Do not confirm a booking to “see how it looks.” Do not confirm over an overlap warning because the dates are close enough.

Physical list, same day as the advert

On the day you intend to advertise, check:

Bed, desk and built-in storage are clear of the last occupant’s goods
Keys, remotes and tags for that room are in the office or on the handover hook
Incoming inspection photos from the last tenant are filed, so you are not photographing someone else’s posters as “the room”
Meter readings for the house are not six weeks stale if you will mention utilities
The lock works. A broken passage lock is not a feature
The published rent, deposit and available-from date match the conversation you will have on the viewing

If the room still smells of the last tenant’s cooking oil, you can still photograph it. You cannot call it newly refurbished.

Photographs that match the room you will show

Shoot the actual room, in the current light, with the current curtains. Do not recycle last year’s paint job if the wall is now scuffed. Do not crop out a missing cupboard door. Parents who drive from Johannesburg notice the door.

Do not show a tenant’s face, post, medicine or ID in the frame. Do not show a key in the lock with the street number readable. Exterior shots need ordinary caution; interiors of occupied rooms need consent or emptiness.

Words that you can stand in the passage

Write what is true today. “Student room in a managed Durban house, shared kitchen, prepaid electricity billed as the lease says.” Do not write “five minutes from campus” if it is a two-taxi trip. Do not write “wifi included” if the lease says the tenant buys a router. Do not write “secure” as if it were a grading. Describe the actual gate and the actual lighting.

Rents on the live listings are owner facts. If a figure is still a placeholder from a demo, the room is not ready to advertise. Fix the Properties record first.

Overlap and double selling

Open Bookings for that unit before you take a deposit from a new person. If the desk warns that the dates overlap another booking, stop. The warning does not block the save. That is deliberate. It is also how two families arrive with mattresses on the same Saturday.

Read the overlapping row. Check the real occupancy. Only then decide whether the new dates are possible. A listing is not a lease. A paid enquiry is not a reservation.

Common areas can kill a room advert

A clean bedroom next to a week of uncollected refuse is not “available now” in any useful sense. Walk the kitchen, the shared bathroom and the yard. If a leak is open on a ticket, either finish the repair or take the room off the site until the plumber has been. Selling around an active ceiling stain trains the next tenant to ignore the fault form.

Log the turnover work as repairs and materials on the desk. Close the old ticket with evidence. Then publish.

After you publish

Someone should be able to answer the enquiry form the same day. If the room lets, take the listing down or mark it occupied before the next parent refreshes the page. Scan Properties weekly for “available” units that are lived in.

If a viewer reports a fault during a walk-through — a broken window latch, a dead passage light — do not leave it in a chat. Send it through Report a fault or log it in /manage/ so the room is not advertised as finished work.

Vacancy is a fact you verify with keys in your hand. Advertise after that walk, not before it.

Questions about a current room, or a viewing in Durban, go to the enquiry form or +27 60 313 6961. Do not use the fault form to reserve a bed.