WA What you wish you knew? - Proprty Mgmt

Discussion in 'Property Management' started by El Patron, 16th Jul, 2021.

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  1. El Patron

    El Patron Well-Known Member

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    I'm about to settle and lease out my first IP.

    As a newbie, I'm hoping to learn from other people's experiences.

    What do you wish you knew about property management or leasing out your property when you first started?
     
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  2. spoon

    spoon Well-Known Member

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    What they promised vs. what they do is so different.

    Ultimately the buck stops at you and you have to pick up the pieces. They said they had tried their best to help and gave you all the inspection reports, nonetheless...
     
  3. thatbum

    thatbum Well-Known Member

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    This seems less effective than just learning the actual residential tenancy law and procedures directly. Why not do that instead? Lots of resources online, especially in WA.
     
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  4. Propin

    Propin Well-Known Member

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    What I wish I knew -

    I had a PM who charged me $100 if I didn’t go ahead with an expensive quote and it was taken out of the rent. He had/has several expensive side businesses.

    My PM’s have always advised me not to take the tenant to the tribunal as their fees to do it usually costs around the same as what is outstanding from the tenant.

    PM’s will tell you marijuana is grass clippings unless you persist on clear photos.

    Some PM’s think it’s ok to sight bongs around the property and think it’s not even worth mentioning. It’s better to have a PM agency that doesn’t have high staff turnover so you can talk about what you would like reported to you. Yuck, I don’t think I’d like to mention what I found when I did my own inspection.
     
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  5. D.T.

    D.T. Specialist Property Manager Business Member

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    Would you go to tribunal for $150 if the fee was $100? What would you minimum be?

    Very important! When i was a property investor it was worse than talking to Telstra call centre sometimes, when trying to talk to my PM - always be on leave or left the company etc. If they have high turnover, its a sign that its a not very nice place to work - probably overloaded with too many properties or have a Principal who only cares about sales.
    This question is quite close to my heart. I started investing in 2003 (with the help of these very forums) with my first one in Perth, where I lived at the time, and then subsequent ones in Adelaide. I went through multiple property managers trying to find a good one. What kept happening was a good one would leave as discussed above, or were otherwise glorified receptionists. I started my PM agency after all that, to do things how i thought they should be done.

    Some things that i think are important:
    - Too many people worry about fees. I'm not saying cheap ones are bad and expensive ones are good, necessarily, but its not a cheap business to run (needs staff, subscriptions to a million different softwares, a few different insurances, license fee every year, training and professional development etc.) A well resourced PM agency / PM Department is in the box seat to do a good job. If they earn the money they need to, then they can employ the staff and engage the tech they need to do a good job.
    - Being an investor themselves. Otherwise they just wont get it. Time in the industry will help a lot. But most start out from customer service background and don't understand the needs and expectations of investors.
    - Being PM only. I think too many sales agents, particularly principals, aren't involved enough in their PM departments
    - Landlord having a decent property. Trust me I bought some slums early on too. If we have something good to work with, helps get a better result all round. Properties in poor location or poor state of repair or lacking key features will always be harder to rent, or harder to attract a decent tenant to.

    Hope this helps
     
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  6. Michael Mitchell

    Michael Mitchell Well-Known Member

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    lol, here I am using my own money to go to tribunal to win for my owners because they should never lose money in principal if I do my job right and by me doing my job right I should never be in a position to not win, and they don't teach you this stuff in the ~1 week it takes to get a real estate licence so the only way to learn is to do! :)

    This case that was heard today cost me about $600 in ink to print 1,000'ish pages, $120 something application fee and many hours of my time preparing and running around, 'tenants hid so engaged a field agent to find and serve them, got there in the end :cool:

    upload_2021-7-16_18-0-6.png

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    upload_2021-7-16_18-1-33.png

    That's 12 from 12 now

    upload_2021-7-16_18-5-8.png
     
  7. skyfall

    skyfall Well-Known Member

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    Well it's not really worth mentioning these days is it? I would be more concerned with empty bottles of alcohol lying around everywhere - some tenants get drunk and destroy property. Weed smokers are usually pretty mellow people.
     
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  8. Mel Morgan

    Mel Morgan Sydney Property Manager Business Member

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    As an investor for 21 years now I've learnt: There are great and terrible PMs around, don't accept everything your PM tells you until you've worked out which one you have + don't accept a tenant that seems too good to be true.
     
  9. Shazz@

    Shazz@ Well-Known Member

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    1. There are companies out their that purely focus on property management, versus those that do sales and property management. In my experience, I received the best service companies that solely focus on property management.

    2. You don’t have to settle for a rookie PM. You get to choose- ask for one that has more than 10 years experience.
     
  10. PeterCr

    PeterCr Well-Known Member

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    While you may not always find a decent property and sometimes there may be a capital that may need to be employed if you have not already purchased to get it to a decent state. So you may also need to see if you have a tricky property e.g. less than perfect property, location/tenancy requiring special PM skills then it may be worth aligning the right PM to those Property Types. It is hard-work to manage some types of property and I would say in some cases it a trial and error to land on the right PM.
     
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  11. Sackie

    Sackie Well-Known Member

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    Just make sure you have landlord insurance. The rest is mostly luck of the draw. Even when you think you've picked a good agency, good tenants put forward etc. Imho it's often mostly luck whether you get decent acting tenants or nightmares once they move in and niceties are over.

    Do your DD and pick the best agency you can find. Then cross your fingers.
     
  12. Propin

    Propin Well-Known Member

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    I was only using that as an example, what had me concerned was the mattresses in the lounge room which was apparently for visitors when I questioned but when I inspected for myself there was also a couple of additional Queen sized beds and bottles with urine? Beside them, ten mobile phones on a bench in the garage set up like a bedroom. If it’s like that on inspection day it does make you wonder what other days are like.
     
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  13. Propin

    Propin Well-Known Member

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    But in another incident with the grass clippings one tenant almost killed the other when he found out about his hydro set up - it was a bit stressful although yes these days not taken too seriously when there is a bigger things happening.
     
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  14. SeafordSunshine

    SeafordSunshine Well-Known Member

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    Dear El Patron, congratulations on your purchase!
    I think you have some valuable suggestions here.
    Also please consider:
    Keeping an eye on what's happening in the market.
    Find out which laws apply to you, so that you know how to keep them
    I hope this helps
     
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  15. Sackie

    Sackie Well-Known Member

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    You're definitely on my short list for future PMs in Brisbane now.
     
    Last edited: 17th Jul, 2021
  16. Propin

    Propin Well-Known Member

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    In both cases it was around $400, $500 but the PM’s were going to charge me a couple of hundred to attend tribunal and said if I lost I could be down further. In one of the cases I ended up agreeing to halve what they owed me rather then attend tribunal. I’ve had a tenant take me to the tribunal before, and the tenant lost, it does take a bit of preparation but just part of the job.
     
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  17. Michael Mitchell

    Michael Mitchell Well-Known Member

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    Whilst it might make economic sense to sometimes cut your loss or take the best net approach save everyone time, the problem is bad Tenants who continually get away and let off like this will just keep being bad Tenants . . . . .
     
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  18. Leonard Ng

    Leonard Ng Member

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    its almost 1.5 years you are into it and I hope you are enjoying it
    the biggest lesson I learned so far is only 1 thing:
    - try your best to align the stakeholders' (pm, sales agent) best interest with yours , if possible put every specific promises into writing and be clear and concise as possible to protect yourself
     
  19. Stoffo

    Stoffo Well-Known Member

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    Limiting the amount the PM can spent on "repairs" !
    Usually set to a few hundred
    Last thing you want is a bill in the thousands for repairs you knew nothing about or wouldn't have authorised........
     
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  20. El Patron

    El Patron Well-Known Member

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    The only lesson I was missing from this thread is:
    "You get what you pay for" with PM's.

    The ones I got are useless, thankfully the tenants are sane and looking after the place, so I'm keeping the rent raise sensible and the cheapest in the suburb so I don't have to deal with them moving out and risk getting any undesirables.

    Otherwise all going dandy :)
     
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