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No I think they’ve all been real estate agents. Maybe the rental only agents are better – but now I just have a whole negative feel about all of them. When looking for a new rental though, it’s not really feasible to restrict ourselves to particular agents.
As an aside, I lived in Canada for a few years, and the rental set up there was so nice and stress free. We rented through the owner (which of course is always best). It didn’t even occur to us to look anywhere other than the newspaper for available rentals – I assume this means most people manage their own. It is expected there that the owner pays for a cleaner at the end of a tenancy. This is not to say that tenants leave the place trashed, but all the finicky stuff is taken care of by the owner as part of the cost of renting an investment property. This means that there are few disagreements at the end of a lease (unless of course something is broken). Very good system.
I had a nice time here to get my bond back from an agent who claimed I didn’t clean properly. I had photos from after I cleaned so I knew I was OK. The way it works is they take out how ever much they want from the bond, and if we disagree it is the tenant who has to do something about it. It cost him nothing to try to get our bond, it cost him no time. We had a hearing with the small claims court and of course he didn’t show up. So we got to keep all of our bond – a pain to us and a waste of our time. Nothing to the agent. I wonder, if we hadn’t challenged him, would this money have gone to the owner??? I doubt it very much.
If you have an investment property why not look after your investment yourself. The good tenants would prefer to deal with you. Does an agent cost more than a few weeks rent anyway, in case you have a kindhearted moment? Unpaid rent can be taken out of the bond that you should lodge with RTA.
Thankyou for listening to my frustrations.
I have a different perspective as a tenant. I am 40 years old, am over educated and have a well paid job. I have been renting for nearly 20 years and have a perfect rental record. I ALWAYS pay my rent on time and am clean and tidy.
There are some very bad rental agents out there. You may be frustrated about not filling your vacant property, but you may find at the other end tenants very frustrated about waiting to hear more than 2 weeks about their rental application. THIS IS NOT UNCOMMON. You might also find it easier filling your rentals if you can show the house during hours that suit them. Not during hours that most of the population are working.
Before realestate.com it was much easier to find a rental property in the newspaper, where all contact was with the owner, which as a tenant I cannot explain how much I prefer this. It was rare for an owner to raise rent on a tenant once they had a good one and they always responded to requests for repairs. My rent has gone up $40/week in 2 years. If you have a good tenant make sure you keep them. I am certainly thinking about moving to get a cheaper rent from someone who is having trouble renting their property. Others in my block are $30 a week cheaper so I am being ripped off. It is now worth the trouble of moving.
For my previous rental, the agents never did proper repairs – even dripping taps that were wasting litres of water an hour (during a bad drought!). Or it just never happened. I have often heard the line “the owner doesn’t want to pay for that”. Often I find this hard to believe.
In my current rental, we had a broken toilet for nearly a year. We have INCONVENIENT “inspections” every 3 months and alway wrote this on our inspection form. You may find that agents you pay to do 3 monthly inspections send out their most junior employees. Our broken toilet was photographed 4 times by different people during inspections, and yet it took a year for the agents to do anything about it. I found the photographing particularly funny. As we had another toilet we didn’t push this – but the toilet did become stained because of the fault. Which leads me to a question to you owners … after being in this place for 2 years do do you think it’s fair that I’m inspected every 3 months?
If you have an agent, don’t assume they are doing the right thing by you. Assume they are doing the right thing by themselves, or are doing what they can be bothered doing. They will still be charging you one way or the other. What’s more they will not change if you don’t keep on top on them. Of course I am sure there are some good agents out there – but from a tenants perspective they are very rare. If you have a good tenant you don’t have to pay your interest out of your own pocket. Rental agencies get paid for the properties they manage. Tenants fork out the cash for the both of you.
