When you are managing your property by yourself, where to find idea, comments?

Hey guys,
How are you? My girlfriend and I are managing our property throughout the year, it has been pretty good so far. We are located in Melbourne and I want to know more people who have experience in this and their Ideas about this challenge.

we are still babies trying to get some Capital Growth in the future, We thought it is a pretty good way to do so

I wonder what idea, fears, frustration or opinion you guys have?
Any digital way or an efficient way to do it without a property manager.

 

There are platforms out there but if anything, your admission that your experience levels are low is reason number one why you shouldn't be managing your own property. The number of properties I own is into the double digits and whilst I actually did manage one or two in the early days myself, the more experience I got, the more I realised that I shouldn't be managing them myself. Unfortunately, it's always the least experienced investors who try to save a few dollars by managing themselves and they are the exact type of investor who shouldn't.

Quick question...your tenant stops paying you rent and you can't get in touch with them via email ir phone. What is your plan?

 

Send a letter on time every time they stop paying. Go knock on the door. Call the police because you think they may have died in the house because you can't seem to get their attention. Plenty of options there to counter a renter who thinks they can just stop paying rent.

My suggestion to the OP is stick with it if you feel like doing it. Learn the rules, know the relevant laws regarding tenancies, and be pro active, unlike many many agents who are mainly reactive and late on the scene.

You can only do better than your average managing agent who have way too many to manage.

We found that managing a tenant was much easier than managing the agent! That was lose/lose situation for us. Changed it around and became win/win for both our tenants and us.

If you want to do it go for it but get the knowledge, the experience will come in time. No different to an new managing agent. God knows we had plenty of "experiences" with them.

Sure there are good agents around but few and far between. IMO.

 

Mate! Thanks, it's a wonderful peace of advice yes I aggree with you, property managers are sometimes too hard to deal with. Plus, they take forever to reply an email plus the arrogant attitude.

 

Thanks mate, I really appreciate thanks for taking time and giving me some advise about what I should do.

 

I agree with Phar Lap it is much easier to manage a property yourself than manage an agent. I have one managed by an agent but it is more work than all the eight I manage myself. When I sacked the agents I got much better tenants, not entitled ungrateful whingeing deceiving acquaintences of the agent. I got $70 a week more than the agent said I could get, one property I got much more, I saved on fees and maintenance, one property I got 3 months rent in cash in advance. I never have a vacancy because I have tenants waiting to get in before the old ones leave, which is a bugger because I want to some reno but I wont knock back a good tenant. I only had one tenant who left owing some money it was easy to get paid, a visit to VCAT a simple form and bank statements and the bond covered most of the payments and a threat to have his income garnished produced the rest. The best way to learn is by doing. Most of my tenants are referred by employers of my target tenants who have done very thorough vetting and need accommodation for their employees who sometimes pay their rent. They have no rental history so are rejected by agents and are very appreciative and relieved to get somewhere to stay. Including a single mother desperate to get out of a bad housing commission area. I get inquiries through Roomlala. I have found recently face book is getting a lot of inquiries it appears that is where people look for accommodation now. In the last week got two very polite tenants and had to rejected another one.

 

I don't find property manage very challenging. If you have the right tradesman, accountant, solicitor. It is just a couple of breif phone calls a year. The accountant automaticly gets my transaction they are coded and sorted out automaticly

 

That's awesome mate! I know it may sound pretty silly questions but I must ask them. How do you find tenants? I mean where do you list your properties? Where do you find tradies? Do you use local ones? How do you manage the initial inspection for potential tenants, the routine inspection? And the most important how do you make the condition report? Once the leave the tenancy how do you inspect the property and compared it with the condition report so that the tenants can get their bond back? I did all that quite informal but we were sooo lucky to get great tenants that understood our unexperience I will really appreciate any piece you could give us mate. Have a great day

 

Thanks mate! I will give a good read to all that.

 

Sorry, but this just shows a lack of knowledge also. Are you aware of the procedure and requirements in your state for rental arrears? If you're not and/or you haven't followed it properly, your landlord insurance rental claim will be denied. Do you realise that you're not just allowed to show up on a door step and harass a tenant? Do you have the time and ability to take them through the tribunal when your knock on the door and letter doesn't achieve anything? Then when the tenant doesn't show up at the tribunal, are you aware of the process from there?

A great tenant continues to be a great tenant until they're not and although it doesn't sound like you've had any troublesome tenants to date, I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who have and would gladly share experiences of what happens when a self-managed property goes bad. I couldn't count the number of times we've had to pick up the pieces from this sort of scenario where the landlord simply didn't know what to do.

 

So what is the difference between what I could do and the property manager could do when someone doesn't pay the rent? If they don't have even time to reply an simple email on time, if they come up with this incredible arrogant attitude all the time. Sorry mate, but I am sure that property manager industry is quite old fashioned and if you ask me I found it quite useless having a bridge between the tenants and I.

 

It breaks my heart to see so many people disillusioned with the Property Management industry, but I 100% understand why. The VAST majority of Property Managers are not properly trained, underpaid and don't care about their job. It's no wonder so many Landlords are disappointed in them. (Shameless plug alert!) A good Property Manager will transform the way you deal with property.

If you're intent on self-managing, which is fine, you MUST get yourself up to date with all the surrounding legislation and procedures. It's a massive task. Our industry has become extremely litigious and heavily scrutinized over the past ten or so years.
You don't have to read the ten or so acts that affect our industry front to back, just learn aggressively and proactively when faced with a new situation.
e.g. learning how F1a Entry Condition Reports work, how to lodge F2 Bond Lodgement correctly, how to fill out a F18a General Tenancy Agreement and knowing that terms and conditions must be carefully drafted so as not to contravene the act and annul the agreement, how to serve a F11 Notice to Remedy Breach and a F12 Notice to Leave with the correct notice via post or hand delivery plus calculating the rent from the previous day owed and not the current day, ensuring compliance with pool and smoke alarm and corded window covering requirements, not conducting inspections more often than every three months and providing 7 days full notice, what insurances you need, how to keep the ledger, etc. etc.

As far as advertising, there are a variety of platforms available to you that you can use to piggyback and list on the main portals like Domain and Realestate.com. You can also advertise on a number of Private portals and Gumtree along with the aforementioned places suggested in previous comments. You should absolutely get your own professional photos done as well.

 

Based on what you're saying here.. the easiest solution is to get a new property manager who knows what they're doing, and actually picks up the phone and answers your enquiries. Not all PM's are bad.

 

If you intend to self manage,make 100% sure have a valid lease in place and registered with the bond held by what ever government department in your state-- and the bond number..
Mainly because ,when not if as you will have problem's with self-management the first question the insurance call centre person will ask is what lease is in place and with who and the bond number,and how much bond is held and have you issued the breach notices ,you miss one of those and the insurance will use you as a door matt..

Plus read you landlord insurance several times as I have self managed till about year and a half ago for a very long time and everything can run well till you hit a big bump in the road and when your in the middle of the tenants who are over due for months the insurance company tell you the right paperwork is not in a place and if the tenants know how to play the crying game as most do these days it can go from champagne too **** that quickly ..imho..

 

You could always try this option...

(Today's Daily Telegraph and please don't ask me why I was reading it)

 

Uuummm, I have self managed for 16 years now, and we have had all types of tenants and never needed a tribunal. Had one do a runner that a PM would not have picked up until way too late (even more arrears). Our insurance covered it all with some extra rent while restoring some damage.
We know the residential tenancies act NSW better than most agents, we have come across. For sure there are good agents, but few and far between.

Your language above seems a little aggressive towards anyone considering self managing ....." harassing a tenant". Really?

There is procedures and my advice is to know those procedures and follow them to the letter. Just like a good efficient PM would.
It's not an exclusive club, anyone can do it if they desire to.

 

Why do i hire people to do something? Either theyre better at it than i am, or my time is better spent elsewhere.