Hi everyone,
I am hoping that all the investors out there can help me.
I am re-evaluating my property management business, and I want to be able to address ISSUES that investors find with property management.
I of course had my investment properties managed by an agent before I began my own business, and found the process to be entirely disheartening. From keeping the rent high, even after 4 weeks of vacancy, and me begging her to drop the rent to get someone in, to hiring an agency, have the property vacant for 2 weeks only to realise they had never advertised it in the first place, and many other stuff ups.
I hear horrible stories from new clients who are coming to me from a bad property manager, but I am hoping to find more.As I am on the other side of the fence now, I struggle to step in your shoes, but I can think of a few to get you started:
*property managers never phone back
*emails are never responded to, or if they are, its days and days later
*making promises they cant keep
*lacking communicationI know mistakes happen from time to time, but I also know there will be some recurring patterns out there… So come on and tell me, what is your property management experience? I want all the gory details!
Thanks PI.com world
Where to start ..My partner and I owned 18 units and we went with one of the largest property management companies in town. ( Charlotte NC area.
Long story short 3 years ago I started my own management company after the head aches.
Checks did not come on time as promised.
Vacant units looked like crap when I showed up to inspect my self ( grass actually was as high as the rental sign.)
Some vacant homes sign knocked down in yard… did not know how long the sign was down.
Our vacant properties at the time .I wanted updates on calls and showing on the property to get an idea if over priced or what the problem was.
From the time there office received a call from a tenant with a problem to the time they sent some one out to fix.Took to long for the handy man to get to the job to fix the problem and over charged at that.
Those would be just a few complaints.Then we started our own management company. We are always looking for more ways to keep both investors , and tenants happy. So love to see some more feed back on this subject
Sincerely
AlexI'm a PM and actually went through this process with clients too! I work in an area where all PM's have a bad name and I wanted to stand out from the rest and make sure I was on the right track to keeping all of my clients really, really happy with my service! Obviously communitaction is important but I think the thing it really comes down to is be pro-active, not reactive. It's easy when in property managment to get into a situation where you are just reacting to everything which is happening, if you can get to a point where you are being pro-active half of the problems will be solved before they arise and you'll have some very happy landlords
. Just my thoughts on it!Off the top of my head PMs who
1. Forget they are employed by the landlord and not the tenant.
2. Are not proactive in rasing rents & attending to maintenance requirements.
3. Are not in regular touch with landlords. (LLs should also be proactive on this too)
4. Allowing tenants to go periodic
5. Being reluctant to get quotes for work to be done.……………………………………………………
Ours were great at getting a tenant, it was never vacant, rental return was best in the suburb for the house type, good price and the rent was always on time (as they made their clients use an electronic direct debt system).
BUT……..
poor inspections…….. where issues are under reported. Eg noted at the 3 month inspection there was some paint coming off the walls. We called and asked about it when we recieved the report. Manager assured us it was only minor superficial and would be fixed. When they left a year later……. it was 1m x 1m of paint missing on a wall….(????)……… our property manager then didnt want to put in a claim because they claimed we rented the house out that way…….we got our money back in the end but there were numerous issues that should have been dealt with during the inspections that was not dealt with. They did their inspection after the tenants left, and said everything was fine. We went and had a look for ourselves……. very shocked as their final inspection was so glowing of the condition of the house….. turns out they got the carpet cleaner to inspect the home (yes I was told the cleaners inspect the house- how would they know the condition of the house they had never even seen the house before). Anyway thank god for bonds (which covered all but a few hundred dollars of damage which was covered by insurance)…….. We learnt our lesson.
ANDCommunication is the biggest one for me though. I found it really hard when I wanted to find out something. Everytime I called it seemed there was a new manager of our house, and a different person for each issue which mean talking to people who didn't communicate with each other.
A few qualms with my current PM as a tennant –
– Having to follow up issues 3-4 times and over several weeks.
– Not being informed that the PM had moved on and that someone else had been managing for the last 2 months.
– Property not inspected by PM before we moved in. There was obvious mess still in the unit including crumbs on the bench and food wrappers behind some furniture.
– Overall poor communication. I have heard a few people say the same thing up here (Darwin). I think with so many IPs up here the PMs just take on way too much work focus too much on the property part not the management.
– Inspections agreed to quarterly yet we have our first one this week, 9 months into the tenancy.
– The unit came fully equiped but half the equipment was rubbish and unuseable. For $500pw we were expecting to get at least a vaccuum cleaner that worked, a mop without a scungey head and an ironing board that didnt have a scrap bit of material duct taped to frame!I'm half tempted to try and contact the owner once the lease is up and let them know my thoughts about the PM. If I was the owner the PM would have gone a long time ago.
My 2cHi,
We have only been renting our IP out for the last 5 months and are alrady sick of our PM!
The hot water system was dodgy in the house so we asked the PM to get 2 quotes to replace it, we recived one within a day with the manager saying 'I'll email through the second one when I receive it".Well two weeks later I get an email from her with a forwarded email from the unhappy tenant who had had cold water for the past two days, and asked us to hurry up and make our minds up and why we hadn't got it fixed! So I very nicely told her we were still waiting for the second quote and she didnt beleive me until I forwarded her the last email she sent me! She finally got the other quote and admitted she was in the wrong, but the tenants had a very bad impression of us and they had cold water!
Also, at the very start we had a change of PM without being informed which we didn't like too much.
TayloredProperty – I think it's great you have are getting property investors opinions, I think you will make a good PM with all this on board!
Good Luck!
KateHi Skye
The single biggest issue we (wife and I) found with PMs was a lack of communication (with all parties – us and tenant). We had one PM who took 3 weeks to find a tenant for a property which hasn't been vacant for one day since we started self managing. I think a lot of it has to do with communication. We return calls/emails straight away and show people through the property on short notice. I suspect the PM wouldn't have shared the same enthusiasm for placing a tenant.
We now self manage all but one.
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]
Hey Skye,
Great to see you out on your own now. Hope everything is going well too.
Re your post though, I think the lack of communication sometimes, and the 'generic' cut'n paste type inspections would be the biggest gripe I have. Keep it personal. If I was buying over in sunny SA I'd give you a shot!Cheers
1 inexperienced property managers, learning on the job with little or no backup
2 over-extended PM’s, too many properties, not enough time
3 little or no communication, not the glossy newsletters but real comms – a phone call or email to ‘get to know the client’
4 regular meet & greet with each owner ie relationship building.
5 attention to details, ensuring you have all your information up to date & correct
6 provision of feedback to clients & tenants
7 attending to maintainence, the stuff you see at inspections
8 advising owners of issues
9 reliable tradies
10 not penny-pinchingAs I type this, I'm chasing up two weeks of missing rent. Not long before, I went for a holiday for 2 weeks or so, round about the same time my PM went on leave. Recently I got down to checking my bank statements and found 2 weeks of rent were missing from the statements, corresponding to the period we were both on vacation.
I was under the impression that property investment was supposed to yield passive income. That is, money that comes in without you actually needing to work for it. This missing rent turns that concept on its head. Apparently if either the PM or myself (or both of us) go on vacation, the money doesn't come in! And of course, if I didn't check my bank statements and trusted that everything should be working fine, it would have been a grave error and my loss to bear.
Time and time again I've learnt to chase up and check things over and over. It makes you seem paranoid to do this, but life has taught me this much: don't concern yourself about what things should be like. Accept the things that are and rectify issues accordingly.
Anyway, I've spoken to an ex-PM as well and I'm sure they too have their own challenges. This particular person said that, between landlords that don't want to spend a cent on repairs and tenants that complain about everything, you've got your hands all tied up! That said, some PMs probably have WAY too many properties on their book to successfully manage them to an acceptable standard, hence causing the issues many people raise as above.
fword, if you’re having to chase the pm & the wheels fall off in their absence, what sort of obsolescence is there in the agency? It makes me wonder how long it would take the pm or the temp to realise the rent wasn’t received & a call to the tenant was in order, surely not two weeks. What would happen if it was end of month?
Good point Scott, although in this instance I am debating that the tenants actually have paid and it was the agent's office at fault for not ensuring the funds were disbursed to my account. Other than the missing rent these two weeks, I've been paid consistently every fortnight. Regardless, this is a grave concern.
Derek wrote:Off the top of my head PMs who1. Forget they are employed by the landlord and not the tenant.
2. Are not proactive in rasing rents & attending to maintenance requirements.
3. Are not in regular touch with landlords. (LLs should also be proactive on this too)
4. Allowing tenants to go periodic
5. Being reluctant to get quotes for work to be done.……………………………………………………
I second Dereks points 1-3 from my experience. Especially point no. 1. Sometimes i feel like my PM is renting my properties to her mates for less than market rent. They are always a friend's mother or an ex colleagues daughter or the man that owns the local newsagency's son etc etc (these are real examples haha!)
I hear your point Mrs C – can I ask if the IP’s are in a small town (may be a bit of an explanation for the closeness but possible laziness of the pm if it’s not a small town). Have the selected tenants been a bad call by the agency? Familiarity can be a good or a bad thing – it may allow vigilance to drop or allow you to secure a tenant earlier (less loss of cashflow).
To further Derek’s point about contact, this is a business relationship – occasional contact with the pm costs zip but can also put you front of mind when dealing with prospective tenants for upcoming rentals rather than languishing for weeks with little activity.
Scott you guessed it! yes in a regional town.
In everyone's experience, how many properties is too many for a PM to properly manage and keep both sides happy? Any numbers someone can throw out there?
grantos_champos wrote:In everyone's experience, how many properties is too many for a PM to properly manage and keep both sides happy? Any numbers someone can throw out there?This is a tricky question as I guess there's no exact number where everything falls apart for a PM. It's like clients in my business asking me how much to feed their dog.
'Sure, for your dog weighing 23.89kg, feed it 56.55g of moist food in the morning, then combine that with 16.49g of dry food in the evening and another 266.01g of moist food. Oh wait, let me work those figures again.'
Anyway, in all seriousness, I once read of a PM having managed over 200 properties in the past. If that was over 200 properties at once then I'll be quite concerned.
grantos_champos wrote:In everyone's experience, how many properties is too many for a PM to properly manage and keep both sides happy? Any numbers someone can throw out there?ONE
Ian
http://theblockblog
Free Property Investing Information for Investors With A Sense Of Humour.Derek wrote:Off the top of my head PMs who1. Forget they are employed by the landlord and not the tenant.
2. Are not proactive in rasing rents & attending to maintenance requirements.
3. Are not in regular touch with landlords. (LLs should also be proactive on this too)
4. Allowing tenants to go periodic
5. Being reluctant to get quotes for work to be done.……………………………………………………
Ditto Derek. When the chips are down PMs will go into protective mode and pull out the Rental Tenancies Act to tell you they have acted strictly in accordance with the articles therein, no matter how many of your requests or instructions they have ignored.
They are all as sloppy as each other. I have had about 10 and for various reasons they have all failed miserably and cost me money that was not necessary to spend.
Taking the side of the tenant has to be one of the most annoying traits, but equal to that is slack property inspections and reporting of detail to the landlord is another major annoyance.
Just remember, being a landlord ain't easy. You have to manage the manager and it's very proactive when they don't get things right.
Ian
http://theblockblog.com
Free Property Investment Information For Investors With A Sense of Humour.
. Just my thoughts on it!
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