G'day. If you self-manage, the cheapest retention tool you've got is a $60 box of stuff waiting on the kitchen bench when your new tenant walks in. It is genuinely that simple — and most landlords don't bother.
I've been doing welcome baskets for every move-in since 2019. The tenants who get one are noticeably more likely to renew, more likely to report maintenance early (before it becomes expensive), and more likely to leave the place in good nick at the end. The honest answer to "does it work" is yes, and the honest answer to "why" is that it makes you feel like a person instead of a leasing portal.
Here's how I do it.
Why bother — the numbers
The average AU tenancy is around 18 months. CoreLogic puts the cost of a vacancy + re-let at 3–5 weeks of rent plus around $400–$800 in advertising, screening, and bond reset admin. On a $650/week rental, one extra renewal is roughly $2,500–$4,000 back in your pocket.
A welcome basket costs $40–$120. You don't need a fancy ROI model to see that one extra renewal every five tenancies pays for it ten times over.
It also shifts the relationship. When something inevitably breaks at month three — a tap, the dishwasher, a smoke alarm chirping — a tenant who feels like a guest in your house emails you on day one. A tenant who feels like a customer waiting in a queue lets it slide until the ceiling stains.
What to actually put in the basket
I run three tiers depending on the rent. None of them require artisan anything.
The $40 essentials box
This is the floor. Don't go below it; if you're going below it, skip the basket and just leave a card.
- Toilet paper — one good 6-pack. Coles Quilton or similar. Sounds trivial, but a tenant who's just hauled boxes in for six hours and discovered there's no loo paper in the house will remember this one forever.
- Dish soap and a sponge — Morning Fresh + a fresh Chux. Three bucks. Lets them clean a glass before they drink water.
- Bin liners — one roll, the right size for the council bin.
- Tea, coffee, milk, sugar — a small box of T2 or Bushells, a 200g bag of supermarket ground coffee, a long-life UHT milk carton (not fresh — they might not move in the same day), and a small sugar.
- A bottle of water — not because they can't use the tap, but because the tap will run brown for the first ten minutes after a vacancy and they don't know that yet.
The $80 mid-tier basket
Everything above, plus:
- A bottle of wine or a sixer — a $25 bottle of something Australian (Yalumba Y Series shiraz is my default; nobody hates it) or a six-pack of Stone & Wood. Skip this if you have any reason to suspect they don't drink — read the application.
- A box of Tim Tams or Arnott's assortment — universal.
- A scented candle — Glasshouse or Ecoya. New rentals always smell faintly of carpet cleaner; a candle fixes the mood in 20 minutes.
- Fresh fruit — a small punnet of strawberries or a few bananas. Skip if you're more than 24 hours from move-in.
The $120 "I want them to stay three years" basket
Everything above, plus:
- A bunch of supermarket flowers — $15 of stems in a cheap glass jar. Looks like $50.
- An Uber Eats or Coles voucher for $30 — the move-in dinner. The single most-quoted line in renewal emails I've received is "thank you for the meal voucher, we didn't have to cook on the first night."
- A small local-area guide — handwritten on a card. Best coffee, best Thai, the bottle shop that's open until 10, the off-leash dog park, which day the bins go out. This costs you ten minutes and is the thing they screenshot to send to friends.
Track move-in dates and lease anniversaries in PropAlly →
The handwritten card is the whole game
If you do nothing else from this article, do this. A four-line note on a $5 card:
Hi [name],
Welcome to [street]. Hope the move-in goes smoothly. My number is [number] — text me anytime for anything that's not urgent maintenance (use the portal for that). The bins go out Tuesday night. There's a great coffee at [place].
— [your name]
Two things to notice. First, you've given them your number — this terrifies some landlords and shouldn't. You're going to be in contact with this person for the next 18 months; the relationship that starts with "here's how to reach me" is a wildly different one from the relationship that starts with a noreply email from the portal. Second, you've routed maintenance to the right channel in one sentence, which saves both of you grief later.
What to skip
Some well-meaning ideas that don't land:
- Anything personalised with their name printed on it. Feels weird, screams that you Googled them.
- Cleaning products beyond the basics. Looks like a hint. They just signed a lease where they agreed to keep the place clean — let them.
- A "house rules" pack on day one. The bond conditions and the lease are the rules. A second laminated document on top reads as suspicion.
- Religious or political items. Obvious, but worth saying.
- Food with short shelf life if you can't time the handover. Strawberries on day three are sad strawberries.
- Anything you wouldn't want to receive yourself. The two-dollar-shop "Welcome Home!" sign is the test case. Don't.
Timing — when to leave it
Best case, you (or the agent doing the inspection) leave it on the kitchen bench an hour before the tenant collects the keys. If you're using a lockbox or remote handover, leave it inside the front door with the keys on top of the card so they see the note first.
If you genuinely can't get there, post the card and the voucher beforehand and put a note in the property apologising — "the basket got delayed, here's a $30 voucher in the meantime." This is still better than nothing.
Where the basket fits in a self-managed onboarding
The basket is one of four things that should happen on or before the day of move-in. The others:
- Bond lodged with the state authority within 10 business days (most states; see the rental bond guide for your state).
- Entry condition report completed and sent to the tenant within 3 business days (varies by state).
- Smoke alarms tested and the date logged — landlord legal obligation in every state, and the photo of the test goes straight into your tax pack.
If you're juggling all this on a spreadsheet, the basket is the bit that falls off first. The whole reason we built PropAlly's onboarding flow is so the "remember to do something nice" part of the job doesn't get crowded out by the compliance part.
See how PropAlly handles move-in →
The short version
- Spend $60. Put it on the bench. Leave a handwritten card with your phone number.
- Don't try too hard. The basket is a gesture, not a gift.
- This will save you, on average, more than it costs. Even if it didn't, your tenant is a human being moving into your house. That's worth a packet of Tim Tams.
— Tob
