The reason I try not to use agency tradies?

Had something similar recently. Had to get a sewer pipe relined, the agencies plumber was $6600 and they were pushing hard for me to use him, "he's honest blah blah" the guy had one of those Christian fish symbols on his quote...

Got it organised myself for $4400. Still a chent of a bill but better than $6600.

 

With sewer relining the quotes massive heaps pending the product the plumber use, each have their own risks and given the site, access,and problem there are different ways it can be undertaken.
I would only use relining as absolute last option! I've worked in the game, but not residential plumbing lining although I know that for the rate of lining/metre of private sewer is on par (roughly) with relining a 500mm+ dia pipe for a water authority! The costs are all covering risk, small order qtys and the equipment

 

I got a quote for a sewer pipe reallignement for something like 2.5k
But then some guy didna cashie for like 500.

Is it rrally that hard to do and justify the 2.5k?

I thought it was a case of turn the water off. Make sure the pipe isnt full. Cut the ends off. New pipe and seal it. No different to a water pipe

 

Whoa! I'm all for a cashie but I guarantee if it went pear shaped he wasn't going to help you dig up the pipe! Brake light warranty with those jobs! Once you can't see his brakes lights, the warrenty is finished!

That cashie probably covered materials and his time the rest is risk and gear.

For the small diameter it is a fiddley bugger of a job. Yours must have been relatively straight forward. Imagine you have a footy sock, but longer covered in super glue, you need to pull it through the pipe and negotiate elbows and any bends to pull through, get it in the right position of the break, no twists, no bulges, no wrinkles, no turds under it all without going off! Then you need to hope the side kick mixed the resin correctly so it goes off properly, and your sewer plug doesn't fail and flood the repair, plus a bunch of other things that can potentially go wrong.

Depending on the job they may price the job if it was to be dug up, then take off a small % to under cut the dig option even though the lining price may be half that! There is easy money to make too!

 

Hang on... We're talking about relining the pipe not replacing

 

Oops. Ignore me. I was talking replacing. Too many scotches last night

If realignment is so expensice wouldnt it be far cheaper with a replacement?

 

Not if it's under a pool or driveway or really deep

Nice cashie BTW! Plumbing is cheap for pipe and fittings its getting it to code and excavators that bump up the cost

 

I don't necessarily agree that they need experience on the investor side, but they need to be intelligent enough to realise that they work for the LL, not the tenant, and they need to be strong enough to deal with crappy tenants, and not just roll over.

My best PM has no property herself. Has only just bought her first home & is newly married. She was trained by my former best PM who was an older woman with a heap of experience under her belt. The older one retired a few years ago & the new one is every bit as good. No nonsense, great communication, loves the job, calls the shots with the tenants - they don't get away with ANYTHING - gets three quotes without being asked. Asks the right questions of tradies, and just won't take BS from anyone. I love her to pieces!

You get a lot of fresh-faced, straight out of school PM's that have no experience whatsoever. They aren't incompetant through laziness as such, it's just that they have no life experience, and then they get given a portfolio of properties to manage. They think the LLs are all rich (because they know no better), and because they have never owned a property themselves more often than not, they have no idea of the correct professional to call, and absolutely no idea if they are being fed BS by the tradies.

I agree! Property management should not be something that you do straight out of school. To do it properly, you need experience. Not in the job itself, but general experience in many areas, although in saying that, I do contradict myself a little here because Lil went straight into Property Management as was brilliant from day one, and I don't say that because she's my daughter, I say that because of how I've heard her deal with issues and the things that others have told me. But then, she was always unusual in that regard.

For those that don't know, she enrolled in SS at age 14 and contributed so much that I would have people asking if I was actually writing the stuff that she was saying. At age 14 she had more 'experience' than many adults in their 30's & 40's. She helped her father fix things in IP's, heard all the stories first hand from our IP's and she could even spot a bargain in the local papers.

So, on getting her first PM job, she was an instant success and kind of put the nose out of joint of several of her seniors when she was doing much better than them almost as soon as she started. I remember at one agency when she applied for the job, she didn't tell them how old she was, and she negotiated her salary to be a lot higher than her age (and work experience) was typically worth.

So....age need not be a problem, IF that person has a love of the job, and the skills to do a first rate job.

 

Grrrrrreee..


So the agent who insisted that i need to replace the entire pipe and that they dont want to manage my property if i dont due to health concerns and thhe quote from their plumber was 3k . Who i managed to negotiate with my own plumber for 600 to to teplace the pipe and fix the leak at the joint.

Ended up digging up the pipe and saying its perfectly fine. So i left it and fixed the leak

Since i agreed to pay him 600 . He gets paid 600 to fix a simple leak......grrrrrrrrrrrr

Thanks a lot mr pm!!!! You almost cost me 3km and then i had to pay 600 for a relatively small job

Buyer beware

 

Hi TMNT, I am not having a poke at you, however it sounds like you need a better PM. A confident knowledgeable PM will surround themselves with tradesman who are efficient and trustworthy. They will likely have a range of tradesman for various jobs e.g. cheap - expensive.

Locate a good PM & trust them.

 

Trust and capability is a critical baseline of any business relationship

 

I had a Evaporative air con head die on me, quote through the PM agency, $2900. A quick google search, same product i organised for $1250.

 

Absolutely disgraceful with the prices and savings! Seriously, I don't think its acceptable that the excuse of property managers not knowing about the prices of repairs (high discrepancy in the price) especially if they worked in the industry for many years.

 

Nah i dont trust them to make those sort of decisions. As someone said they have a lotnof propertirs to manage and they arent experts on's everything trade on the market.

Also I'm sure that even if they do get a great deal for the landlord often the landlord won't appreciate it or expected at the least.

I can save a little more by using my regular people or negotiating a bit harder. So if I get a bill for 300 dollars and I can do for 100 it. It still worth it for me to try my best to do it myself

 

I think that's only half the problem.

The other half of the problem is that the same tradesperson will quote a member of the public one price and a property manager another (higher) price for exactly the same job.

 

Glad you clarified!

There are some fantastic PM's around, but they're not all that common. A good PM can literally save you thousands of $$, which is why it annoys me when someone just wants cheap fees.

Yesterday an owner approved a $20k renovation. Forgetting I'd had one of my tradespeople amend his quote from $13k on the bathroom to about $8k and he'd accepted the quote that worked out $1k more expensive in total. I saved that client $5k from getting another quote, and an additional $1k for doing the math myself.

On a smaller spectrum I had to get a dishwasher replaced, stupid dish drawer thing. First quote $1.2k to replace with the same (expensive to repair, always breaking). I suggested we remove the cupboard above the dishwasher to create enough space for a full size dishwasher which is cheaper to repair and more attractive to tenants. $800 for the dishwasher installed, plus $50 to remove the cupboard.

I had another owner that was quoted $500 to do some odd jobs, my guy did it for $320.

The difference is I care about my work, my business, my name and reputation. If I have a tradesperson I feel is charging/quoting excessive amounts I will not use them.

Sometimes it's not the tradespeople the PM's use; but the PM's.