Hi everyone,
We are about to settle on our first IP and have signed up a property manager. (It is a block of 4 flats). One tenant is vacating in a few weeks and the process will soon begin to get a new one. My question is – how much do i leave up to the property manager and how much do i get involved? Do i double check tenants references etc? Anything else? I am keen to be an active investor and don't just want to sit back, however we don't live nearby. I would be keen to hear others people stories on how they treat the tenant/landlord/PM relationship. Also does anyone give their tenants gifts or incentives to pay rent on time etc or when they first move in?
Thank you
Depends on how good your property manager is. Mine I let them do advertising, reference checks, project management of renovations, chasing rental arrears, repairs, ect. The property manager is a good one as I sacked my last one who wasn't.
Do you want to be an active landlord when you own more than one property?
If I was you I would yet more involved if they fail to do something you want done. This means ringing them and asking for repair , action, ect to be done.
I recently noticed the letter box was stuffed so I asked pm to fix it to a cost of up to $400.
I was thinking of giving my tenant a gift at Christmas time as they have paid on time every month. Do not reward for something that might happen in the future rather reward after good behaviour has occurred.When I was further away I did use a renovation service to fix up the house but now that I am closer I let the PM employ trades people to do the renovation.
With our property manager, we normally leave it up to them to find us a tenant and do checks as to whether they are a good tenant. I figure that’s what we pay them money to do. They will call us if they find a tenant and give us the opportunity to accept or reject a tenant’s application.
I do like to be an active investor myself so I will keep up to date with how the property manager is going with finding a tenant. So I will call the pm if I haven’t heard from them to see how they are progressing. I will also provide my input into the process if I think there is a better way. For example, the last property my pm rented for us, I advised them that I didn’t want to have my property listed on the 3 web sites they would normally list the property on. I wanted it listed on only one and they were happy to do that for me.
I personally don’t give gifts as I haven’t found it to be necessary.A good property manager will do eveything he needs to do – that's what you pay them for. If you have to get too involved you're waisting your money, hire another pm. If you want to be an active investor, why not be active in researching a next property or adding value to your existing property and leave the pm to do what you pay him to do? I certainly finding researching properties and thinking of wasy to add value a lot more interesting than looking after tenants anyway and chances are you will too.
Congratulations with your first IP and good luck with getting the next!
Thank you for all your comments. I was a bit confused on the process, but you have answered my question. The PM has so far been very helpful and forecoming with info and seems to have all the paperwork undercontrol…so i will trust them to do their job.
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