Drug house tenants

http://www.domain.com.au/news/bad-t...ent-property-into-drug-house-20150819-gj1jgo/

Some more detail on this page - particularly around how could have gone with agent but choose not to in order to save a few deductible bucks....

 

This is supposed to be an anti drug thread, not encouraging it

 

No but the centre of town dying off - for whatever reason - doesn't inspire confidence. Just walking around the joint you can easily see pockets in town where the foot traffic has completely collapsed and/or commercial property sits empty for a hell of a long time; even the Westfield feels spookily empty and devoid of traders.

Geelong is near some great beaches - so what? Pretty much everywhere in Australia on the shore-line has fabulous beaches, it's actually not that special. Geelong's unemployment is bobbing toward the ten percent mark; there's been a lot of stable, full-time jobs leave town (Qantas, Alcoa, Target - just to name a few) and I think frankly it's starting to show on the public face of the city.

Just an opinion.

 

Great beaches? For Australia? Or just great beaches for the area?

 

Anglesea and Torquay in the summer are really good - great surf, clean sandy stretches. As good as anything I've seen interstate. It's the Surf Coast that's really been driving that region's growth since the 90's - that and the fact that Geelong is easy commuting distance to Melbourne (now-days).

 

Ah right, real beaches on the coast not in the bay. I was thinking like Melbourne people thinking St Kilda is a nice beach.

 

Please! I'm a proud Melbournian but even I know the Bay is a sewer, especially around St. Kilda. Perth has the best city beaches in my opinion.

 

I love my beach.

 

I'd never been to Perth until about seven years ago when friends moved there - they had adopted the Perth beach thing really quickly. City Beach in particular is superb.

Goes to prove my earlier point that we're very gifted in the beach stakes in our very lucky country!

 

Brisbane's Southbank gives it a run for its money.

 

I knew about him privately managing as it was in the ABC ad.

Also paid more than what was fair market rent it would appear.

As the final line says, if it is to good to be true it is to good to be true.

 

Managing by yourself is not for the faint-hearted; there's more than one thread going at the moment about the perils of cranky tenants. Also, if you are busy with full-time work and other commitments and you're doing it ENTIRELY by yourself then chances are you won't be attentive enough to the needs of the tenant and the property itself (maintenance, routine inspection).

 

It sucks, especially when something goes wrong.

 

There are plenty of threads around singing the praises of self managing, and that it really isn't rocket science.

Now, that may be true, and I know there are some very experienced forumites that self-manage, and do a good job, but in all seriousness, unless you are willing to do the work and learn all the rules, are going to do things by the book (inspections, notices, receipts etc) have the right temperament to not annoy good tenants, can handle giving out rent increases and listen to whingey tenant making demands and appease them (note that not all tenants fall into this category, but some certainly do) and have the time to keep on top of it all, it is a false economy.

There are way, way, way too many newbies out there, who decide that they will self manage, and they have absolutely NO IDEA what they are doing. It is a seriously important job, and if you can't do it properly, or just can't be bothered doing it properly, then hand it over to a professional.

 

Not sure why I was quoted but yes unless you know the legislation (and keep up to date) then you should get it doing by a PM.

 

The other potential issue with insurance is that certain damage may not be considered as "malicious" damage, so if the policy only pays malicious damage by the tenant and not accidental damage (as many landlord policies do) then it may not be paid. This could apply to things like rewiring etc. as the damage was not caused with malicious intent (they were not making the changes for the purpose of causing damage, they were making them so that they could grow drugs). This is even more evident in properties used for manufacturing other drugs where massive cleanup is required, often to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

 

Clever insurance companies and their clever use of legal semantics!

 

Even this property could be up for that much to fix it all properly.
Especially if they aren't able to do any of it themselves.

 

Aided by people simply looking for the cheapest price regardless of the cover.

 

I only quoted you because you mentioned that the landlord (in that ABC story) had tried to do the entire thing by themselves with no help. Its apparent that they didn't really know what they were doing as those results tend to speak for themselves. Most PM's that I know are fairly vigilant and would not have allowed that situation to develop.