hi scampush,
i have one IP (looking at more) but i manage it myself. This saves me $25 per week. When i was looking at renting it out i had a few agents look at it and they thought it would go for about $280pw. Ok after their percentage that leaves me about $255pw. This does not include the cost of finding a tennant which was two weeks rent. Now if you consider a new tennant every year this would end up costing another $5pw so my profit becomes $250pw. I had no problems finding a tenant myself and am charging them $310pw with no fees. The difference managing myself and thru an agent is thus $60pw effectively. Ive had one call from the tenanats where a television boster transformer had failed. It cost me $75 and we agreed they would purchase one and subtract it from my rent. As a landlord i most certainly dont belive in managing agents.
On the other hand i also rent to live. recently i decided to move to wollongong so i thought id go and have a look on sat at rentals. First place at Austenmer beach looked good from the outside. The manager was there but couldnt show it to me as i didnt have an appointment. Actually the unit was 100ms from the office, but this was too inconvienient. drove back to sydney and rang to make an appointment for the next weekend. The receptionist said that was fine and the the agent agreed to show us. the manager then got on the phone and told me they where closed on sat. They seemed to be making it as difficult as possible to look at the unit. We where told we could only view it during the week . I work during the week. we gave up. We did however see another unit and rang up on the mon. made an appointment at thirol for the next sat. when we got there we where told it went the tues. I couldnt help wondering what the first what the owner would have thought if he new that someone out there was finding it impossible to see the unit. Funny thing is the unit is still vacant 2 months later. If anyone out their owns this unit on Austinmer beach, now you know why.
I guess in my case the $60pw has changed what would have been a -cf to a +cf. Having been on both sides of the coin i can assure you agents do nothing more than inhibit a unit being rented out. A year ago i was looking for a unit in sydney. Keep in mind this was when we had a high vacancy rate in syd. my statistics where:
each weekend plan to view 6 places. If you where lucky you could make appointments for 4 of them as the other two just wouldnt ring back or fit you in. Of those 4 appointments 1 to 2 would not show and you stood there waiting like an idiot till you had to rush off to your next appointment.
My recogmendations are:
-manage yourself.
-buy one of the books on managing your own and READ it. I have a good one but cant rememnber the name. let me know if youd like me to check.
-Buy the rental pack for about $7 which includes everything you need for a new lease and do it all legally.
I could go on but i think you have the picture.
Good luck..Alan
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