For all investors, I’m curious what would make you switch property managers if you’re not happy with your current property manager. A few examples that you might choose:
1. Faster time to respond to emails/calls
2. An online portal where you can login to view statements, submit maintenance requests, etc
3. Better reports (i.e. a free, yearly valuation on your property)
4. Lower fees
5. Less turnover of staff (i.e. if your property manager changes all the time)
6. Clearer communication… or anything else you can think of. If you have more than one thing, please list that too. Would also be interested to know which state you are in and how many properties you have.
Cheers.
It was numbers 1 and 6 for me.
They weren’t fast to respond to emails/calls – I’m talking days to provide a response. The communication wasn’t clear either – resulting in vacancies which could possibly have been avoided.
Now my wife looks after most IPs and things go smoothly.
Cheers
Jamie
Jamie Moore | Pass Go Home Loans Pty Ltd
http://www.passgo.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeMortgage Broker assisting clients Australia wide Email: [email protected]
1. Yes – answer phone or return calls in a reasonable time frame
2. Don’t care – can’t see myself using the service
3. Not fussed about this either
4. I’m a big believer in you get what you pay for. Happy to pay a little bit extra if the service comes with it. If the fees are ultra low I tend to think what you’re compromising on to make the fees so low
5. Yes! Or at least when new staff are hired ensure they’re properly trained and know the ropes and their portfolio. An intro would be a nice thing too. A call or email to say ‘Hi, I’m your new PM’ not I call the office and ask for my PM to be told they don’t work there anymore. Especially if they were good and knew how I like to operate.
6. Yes, or just proactive communicationIntegrity and follow through is important too. If you ask for something to be done or something needs to be done at request of the tenant I don’t want to have to follow up several times just to get it done.
One recent example which has made me seek a new PM is I was told there was a crack in the wall at one of my houses. I said to get a builder to look at it and report back if it’s structural or not. Apparent report back was it’s non-structural and I gave the ok to get it fixed. She then advised crack was patched up and repainted. A couple of months went by and I noticed there was no invoice/charge from the builder for the work done. I queried this and she said he hasn’t sent an invoice yet but she’s following it up which I thought was fair enough.
I then toyed with the idea of selling the property and had an RE agent from another company through the property to give an idea on sales price. In his report he mentioned the big crack in the bedroom that was supposedly fixed and that the cracks go through to the brickwork outside and looks like an underpinning issue. I realise he’s not a builder but he sent photos through and unfortunately, by looking at the photos I think he’s right. Not happy….
Kinnon Bell | Kinetic Funding
http://www.kineticfunding.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeMortgage & Personal Loan Broker based in Cairns and Melbourne but servicing clients Australia wide.
1. Yes, that’s important.
2. Not really, I’m happy with the posted statements.
3. Yes, but I expect the monthly and annual reports will be included in the management agreement
4. Yes and no, I look for best value, not necessarily lowest cost. I will pay a little more for reliability and service.
5. My goodness yes. I have been badly burnt by staff turnover.
6. Yes, this ties in with #1I have had experiences with a brilliant and a dreadful property manager.
The awful manager managed to ignore all the maintenance requests from our tenants without telling us over a 6 month period – but all the while blaming us for no repairs being done. Then when our wonderful long-term tenants gave notice to leave (they’d been in the house 7 years) we weren’t even told until AFTER they had vacated the premises. She was only 19 and I think was overwhelmed with the amount of properties to look after so her solution was to sweep the “too hard” work under the carpet. The only redeeming fact for us was that she forgot to deduct their management costs from the rental income before paying us. Of course, when we found out the tenants had already left and we fired the company she initially refused to hand over the keys until we paid the “outstanding” $4000 in back fees. Yeah, that’s not happening. I was furious, but considered it lesson learnt to take more interest in the property management.I also have another property manager I cannot rate more highly. He runs a small boutique agency focussing on property management, is always available and knows who we are when we call (that means a lot), and has a pool of dedicated tenants that tend to stay with him wherever possible. He is reliable and manages all the work, but it’s the communication that really sells it for me.
If it takes more effort to manage the manager than to self manage the properties yourself, it’s time to move on.
The big thing for me is maintenance requests, a PM should be able to handle these to make sure any *real* issues are resolved quickly, but also filter out any unnecessary requests/issues.
You pay for a PM to make the investment as hassle free as possible, after all.
Corey Batt | Precision Funding
http://www.precisionfunding.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeInvestment Focused Finance Strategist - servicing Australia-wide
The big thing for me is maintenance requests, a PM should be able to handle these to make sure any *real* issues are resolved quickly, but also filter out any unnecessary requests/issues.
+1
This really urkes me. I am currently trying to get a fence repaired, at the request of my tenant and we have had to do half the PMs job for them, then they can’t even do their little bit – the saga has been going on for over a year
*(^&^(*&*%#%^%&^
The only thing that makes me keep them is that the tenant is great and I can’t change REA without kicking the tenant out first…
ChrisA1
Persistence is 'to keep on keeping on, no matter how hard the going may be'
Great feedback so far, very interesting to hear everyone’s stories. Keep ’em coming :)
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