Did they lease it at or below market price?

The casey system is a written step by step procedure for sourcing and developing properties in SA, very basic knowledge and it came with a gaurantee of service that you can call the author at any time with questions. The people that developed it had alot of success at that stage but later ran into some financial trouble. Not sure what the arrest was for but sincerley hoping that they get over the hurdle!

Hi shanshan,

There is more to property management than just collecting rent! A Good property manager should be like a partner in your wealth creation strategy and should save you money in the long run.

I run a property management company, we have never advertised ourselves as being cheap but our landlords end up with more money in their bank accounts than landlord's who's properties are managed  by cheaper agents. Here are some of the reasons why and questions you might like to ask your property manager:

Strict arrears control! This is very important, property managers should have a zero tolerance for arrears with no excuses taken and a termination form sent to tenants on day 15 (the minimum allowed by the law). If the tenant is a bad one, you need to go down the path of getting rid of them asap and starting over. Everything else costs too much money. A good pm should also have experience in dealing with tribunal cases on your behalf and this is all part of the management!

Regular rent reviews. If the property is under rented, landlords are losing money. These should be done every 6 months and in cases where rent is not put up, it should be backed up by evidence why not (ie market has not moved). In most cases rents could be raised by $5 to $10 per week every 6 months. In SA this can be done even if the tenant is on a fixed term lease!!!

Your pm should be using up to date REI leases, not the OCBA ones that are dowloaded from the tenancies advise website and are available to private landlords! The REI ones are favoured to the landlord and have specific clauses in there to save money (ie all water usuage to be billed to tenants, phone line connection fees should alos me billed to tenants) These are traditional landlord fees in the absence of appropriate clauses!

Make sure they are up to date as legislation changes regularly! The pm should be a member of the REI and actively involved with them. We are in the REI committee and constantly trying to make noise and change legislation for the betterment of our landlords!

Your management agreements should be easy to get out of! They should offer a garantee on their service and let you out of the contract at any time if you are not happy. Most agencies would lock you in and make you pay a penalty to leave if you are not happy with their service. Be very careful, we are working with many clients at the moment trying to get them out of contracts they are not happy with. They will be coming over to us from cheaper agencies for a variety of crazy reasons!

Maintenance and tenant enquiries should be taken care of promptly!

The average salary for a pm in SA is $25,000 and they are expected to manage 100 to 120 properties. In SA, there are no qualifications required to be a property manager. Many agencies pass it onto their receptionsts as they don't view property management as a serious part of their business. This alone will ensure that your property is missmanaged and you will be losing money on it even if the fees are cheap. Make sure you are dealing with a specialist property management company, that the property managers are being paid well and are not managing the whole rent roll alone!

Instead of ripping off employees and making them work hard for little pay. Isn't it better to increase management fees and also have more property managers managing the same amount of properties? This ensures that property managers are happy because they are making a decent living and landlords and tenants are getting a top service. Well that's our phylosophy anyway

Hi Lesley,

We run a monthly investor network group that started as an informal club and now has over 500 members with around 100 attending each meeting. Please email me [email protected] to be included in the list for invitations to meetings. (no private messages here please I will never see them!!!)

What are your goals? She targets a specific audience so you need to know how they can help you!!!

She advocates very safe and passive investing and the requirement of income to fund property which is negatively geared but becomes positive or neutrally geared after tax. That means that it depends on tax benefits and income to fund the shortfall.

Her strategy is great if that's what you want to do! It will be a big waste of money for someone like me to go and see them. I don't have an income and I like to buy more than 2 properties per year. I also like to create positive cashflow properties before tax

That's why it is important to know what your own goal are before sourcing advise of any sort whether it is this or any other seminars!!!

I agree with Terry let the new pm handle the situation and lift the file from their office.

You are not obligated to sign the agreement. They stuffed up as they should have had the agreement first before acting on your behalf. They can get into alot of trouble far beyond paying you what they owe you.

Tell them that you do not wish to use them as agents and you have chosen someone else also ask them to pay all money owed to you. They should not be deducting property management charges or letting fees or anything else and can't do that legally without an agreement in place.

Also if they have advertised the property on realestate.com.au without a written agreement they have breached the contract with that company as well!!!

Choose a pm that is a bit more on the ball. If they are stuffing up with their own agreements how will they be protecting your interests with contracts between tenants etc???

Yes you can, it is called subleasing and it should be disclosed in the initial lease agreement

You are going about it the wrong way. I have renovated many properties and the heaviest thing I ever picked up was a mobile phone and pen!

The value of renovations is it ads equity to properties that you can borrow against to buy more properties. It's a wealth builder and very well worth the phone calls

Banks can make mistakes too just like everyone else. An honest person would question it and give it back, just because they made a mistake didn't give him the right to spend it!

If you are at a restaurant and they bought out the wrong meals and put them in front of you would you eat them? Most of us would tell them they are not ours knowing that someone else is waiting for them!

What people?