So Hocking Stuart, Balwyn are utterly hopeless.
We rent our current house from them and we are supposed to have a gardener included in the rent. Meanwhile I have been mowing the lawn since we moved in in July last year. We have called and called, emailed and emailed. Finally after a particularly nasty email from my other half, which included the fact that we had 5 rental properties of our own, we finally got one line back saying sorry haven't been able to contact landlord so we'll look into it and try and claim compensation (out of rent be about 15 bucks per week so about $500 bucks plus inconvenience) and get a gardener included. Before you go oh geez who cares about a gardener, I have two little kids and other half works 6 days and one late night a week. We have a whole page of special conditions we have to take care of including watering the garden but the one thing they have to do they cant even do! It is their PPOR and they are overseas for 18mths. I will add this to my list of questions I ask before renting, is the owner a professional landlord?
Now for the good news. Current propery manager Garvey and Co in Camberwell, who rent out our three units is a gem. She has bent over backwards and in fact the whole office (small team of 4 in total) have done everything they can to create a genuine business relationship. Opens every weekend, not even entertaining rubbish applications, more opens during evenings. Judi you rock! The good ones are out there, the bad ones are all around!!! I will always make sure I mystery shop our agents and I would take properties off bad PM's in a heartbeat.
Grrrr!
D
DWolfe | www.homestagers.com.au
http://www.homestagers.com.au
Email MeThere are very few property managers who will be as focused as yourself, afterall if your house is vacant you're missing out on $??? hundreds, whereas they're only missing out on 8 or 9% of that.
GO ouchiemama for trusting your instincts and getting great tenants. You can't beat "gut feel".
Hi this is a real eye opener, as not having to be in the rental market for a while now I haven't given this much thought.
Has anyone had any dealings with managemyproperty in logan central and barry plant melton.Cheers
I love the idea of mystery shopping a PM … and with so many issues from tenants and landlords, why not?
Playa Chicken, good luck with being a PM; there's clearly so much scope for a GOOD, positive PM you're on a gold mine if you can do it!
DWolfe, I think you hit the nail on the head … smaller, more personalised businesses where people actually care … and definitely, if you don't like it, move on. There is no excuse for staying with a bad PM, remember its your half a million dollars (or more) they're playing with so make them work for it.
Its not just the PM industry where people don't give a stuff … look at most service industries. Unless the employee has a vested interest in what they're doing, many of them will do enough to just keep the job. Don't put up with it … change it for the better!
Cheers
MichelleThanks for all the comments on this topic! I love this forum as its so fascinating to hear others experiences.
Reading them fired me up to contact one agency, bypassing the 'new' property manager and going to the director, to say we were expecting better service from them, as the previous p.manager had not returned our calls or the tenants, basically leaving us to liaise with them and manage the property by default. (It was OK as husband was doing pergolas, etc.)
We only had one inspection in a year, and on occasion when I rang, the p.manager would tell me in an aggrieved voice that she'd been sick/in hospital etc. which tends to stop one's queries out of sympathy – but I never thought to ask who was doing her job while she was out of commission (no-one).
I told the director that I'd contacted her new p.manager, ringing 3 times with no responses, until I got through to her, to be told she had 100 properties to catch up on. She hasn't got back to us yet…….and I believe ours is one of their highest renting homes. Another p.manager in a different area is great, so you know it can be done!! Very frustrating, but I guess the lesson is to let your actions speak and change companies. Meanwhile we've just rented 2 homes privately ourselves, conducting after hours inspections, checking references etc. and it wasn't that hard. We would do the same with the house mentioned, but it is in a coastal town with a separate rental market.
G.
Hi Geraldine,
margaret Lomas recommends asking how many properties the agent is managing and how many staff are involved with the property management. it would seem that the abovementioned Pm has too many properties for one PM to manage effectively on their own. They either need to employ another PM or you could look to find a PM who has a more manageable portfolio.
Sonya
The ideal rent roll to manage comprises quality properties with few maintenance issues, gainfully employed carefully screened tidy tenants and polite generous calm easy going appreciative landords always willing to spend on their properties to keep them up to standard and keep the tenants happy. A professional PM could single handedly manage a rent roll of 200 of these and do it properly.
Change any of those factors and you will need more staff and higher fees.
A low quality rent roll comprises lots of tired old properties poorly maintained, mostly occupied by the only kind of tenants it could possibly attract, owned by landlords reluctant to spend anything at all because the lower rents don't allow it, and their budgets are low as well. Expect frequent maintenance issues. Tenant default and tenant turnover are high, as are the associated costs in tenant replacement like Tribunal appearances, termination admin, ads, screening, open houses, inspections, re-let admin, first week's rent, lease prep, etc. – expect a high commission rates coz 8% barely covers the work required for these kinds of labour intensive confrontational frequently combative high stress property managements. With a marginally profitable rent roll like this one, no wonder why they can't service all the properties correctly, no time and not enough staff for all the issues. PM is stuck between 2 parties neither of whom wants to part with any money for the property. Long day.
Some agents refuse to manage properties because they don't want the daily drama. Others make good money from a well selected and well managed rent roll, , and also with a professional PM can use the rent roll as a holding pen for future properties for sale.
So consider carefully firstly what style of property you buy, so you can attract the tenants you want, and so you can expect the PM fees and commission rate you'd like to pay.
Secondly, consider the quality of rent roll your prospective PM is likely to have in their geographical area, & ask them.
Take a real good look around their office and their staff, see what it tells you.The jury is always out on ratios of PM staff to properties correctly managed, but I'll put forward some ball park figures here.
Low quality rent roll …. 1 person : 100 properties max.
Medium quality …. 1 person : 100 – 150
High quality …. 1 person : 200 maxThat's just a glimpse of the PM side of the equation. There are some excellent PMs out there, hope you find one,
and there are the others.Cheers
thecrestthecrest | Tony Neale - Statewide Motel Brokers
http://www.statewidemotelbrokers.com.au
Email Me | Phone Meselling motels in NSW
Hi thecrest and sonya.
Yes I have all Margaret Lomas's stuff, and think its great.
Unfortunately I didn't read that book until AFTER the property manager problem!Re Sonya's ideal landlord/property manager scenario, I think the agent had both in this situation, but still managed to be inefficient. There are just people out there who are not all that conscientious, as previous comments reveal. I am pretty sure we DID NOT order her from the cosmos!!!
I couldn't agree more Property managers are just not doing there jobs and us the investors are suffering big time.
I conducted an experiment last week and am still waiting for the property manager of more than one agency to get back to me.
I have also conducted the same experiment in Bulimba Queensland and the surrounding suburbs and the same lazy reaction from all the PM'S i contacted the properties are opened for a max of 15mins and if you are even a second late the lazy property manager will not let you thru as she is busy closing up the apartment.
Worse still they do not get back to you even when you put in an application, little wonder tenants the people who help pay our investments off get irritated and ticked off and then complain over the smallest thing it is there way of kicking back at these hopeless property managers.
What has worked for me is keeping on top of my property manager and when they stop returning my calls i fire them.
I have since found an awesome property manager and my tenants are extremely happy have had no more fix it requests as the tenants are happy i will ask them if they want to be named in the forum as they handle my Queensland properties.
John
I totally agree my parents had a property and it was coming up for end of lease, and they decided to renovate . Just two weeks before the PM claimed to have done an inspection and all was great, just like when they moved in. Then my parents told them we wouldn't be renewing the lease and they couldn't even find the key and admited they hadn't done an inspection, the unit was a mess, the owner had a cat which was not allowed and was kept in a small unit which it had taken pieces out of carpets, lino and walls. I now manage units for my parents and sister as an extra cash earner and find it quite easy to do if the property is in the same town as you. I know people say don't work hard, work smart but I really don't find it hard at all especially while it is only a few properties. Would have to find a PM if we get too much more.
In VIC in Yaraville to Footscray area I would highly recommend the team at Jas H. Stephens – very professional and highly focused on the job.
Hey Guys,
Just thought I would add my 2 cents to this topic. I'm a 'Pom' moved over from the UK about 4 years ago and decided to keep my PPOR and rent out to the market. I found what I thought was decent management agent and paid for their full serice given I was the other side of the world and dealing with any tenancy issues would be next to impossible! For this pleasure I paid fees amounting to 13%….yes 13%.
I have had constant issues with my agency, the main one being lack of communication….so many times i am having to call them up in the middle of the night because they only start work at 10am UK time…..so many times I have to keep emailing to get an answer to my question. it has made me very frustrated at times but none more so than what happended recently. My new tenant from September last year is a bit of a pain and moans about almost everything. The problem is that my management agency always seems to pander to here every need without ever thinking things through…
Let me give you an example….the tenant complains that her electricity bill is too high and believes the cause to be a faulty boiler. Granted, the boiler is a few years old but gets serviced regularly and repaired when necessary. My MA in their wisdom decided to take the tenants word for it and got a tradesman in to 'look into the problem' and guess what???….yep you got it…..the tradesman decided the whole needed replacing and quoted me a bill of 1,700 pounds!! My MA didn't even question this and came straight to me asking for permission for the boiler to be replaced.
I could not believe this stupidity and immediately asked the obvious questions that any normal person would ask e.g. what was the size of their bill…did they use any electrical heating during the worst winter the UK had in over 50 years….what was their previous bill???? Questions that should have been asked before I was even notified of the issue.
After a lot of e-mail tennis, the issue has now been resolved. Believe it or not, the tenant came back and confirmed they looked at the bill again and it is no longer an issue.
UNBELIEVEABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am now looking to sell my property and invest in something else…..The stress of having to deal with a useless management agency from the other side of the world is too much.
Glad I got that off my chest
Cheers
Steelar
Wow Steelar … you'd think having a managing agent would help solve some of your problems with tenants … even more so when you live so far away. I wonder how much of their decision making came as a result of knowing you were in Australia and, in their opinion, not so easy to contact as a local owner?
Good luck with the sale and your new life here!
Good thread.I will be mystery shopping any potential PM in future. And they had hide to charge the 1st weeks rent??
Hey, I thought I'd put in my two, three, four cents worth as a tenant in Melbourne. I've lived here for 11 years now and I can tell you there are many terrible real estate property managers around.
I've been that tenant trying to see properties on lunch breaks and being crowded into a place for a 15 minute showing! I've been that tenant waiting for calls, text messages and emails to see a property and they never come.
At my last rental property the house was moving due to a large tree in the back yard. It was slowly but surely destroying the house. As the cracks got larger the doors jammed, the bathroom tiles split and water started getting into places it shouldn't. Where did all my requests to the agent go?
Nowhere!
I managed to get in direct contact with the owner after a chance conversation with a neighbour and discovered she knew nothing about the damage to the house. The agent had LIED directly to me in writing, claiming he had told the owner.
At my current property, after I moved in it took some 36 forms of communication to get some very basic maintenance done. Calls and emails all ignored. We're with Metro Property Management (director Leah Calnan) and they are simply terrible from a tenant perspective. We currently have a rat or something large living in the ceiling. This was reported to them during the last inspection (months ago). Nothing has happened and I'll bet a $100 that if I were to call, they'd have no knowledge or record of it.
Is it chewing wires? Maybe. It it running around filling the roof with feces? Probably. Is it damaging the property and the owners have no idea? Very likely.
It go so bad with Metro Property Management that I finally started writing about it on a website: http://www.metropmsucks.com.au
When a tenant is forced to write about such terrible experiences, you know it's bad.
I highly recommend all landlords pretend to be a tenant to test out a property management company. I also HIGHLY recommend that your tenants can actually get in contact with you in some way – even a PO Box so they can write to you. My last landlord didn't know for FOUR years all the damage that was occurring. I doubt my current landlords have any idea what is going on here right now.
Bad,bad,bad, HUH!
So more about Hocking Stuart Balwyn and Kimberly Moyle.
They sent a handyman over to fit a bit of weather strip on the back sliding door. Uhh ok. It rattles a bit but nothing major. The guy broke the door. No really. He took it off and put it back on, then the door ruined the skirting, it wouldn't lock and wouldn't shut. I was like, you cannot leave until you fix that. uhh,uhh. I'll ring the property manager says the guy. I styart ringing the PM as I can't lock my door etc, no response. Meanwhile my other half comes home, takes the door off, puts it back on then it locks. The door is stuffed though, you really have to shove it open as the track is all bent.
Then the hot water pipe burst in the ceiling. We thought the heavy rain was to blame for the drips in the linen cupboard, until the drips turned into a river. Other half got in the roof and found water spraying into the roof.I rang the agent as she was the emergency contact. No answer. I ring the emergency plumber, no answer. It is 9 pm by this stage. Other half shuts off the water so it doesn't continue spraying into the roof.
Plumber turned up in the morning. Agent didn't bother to check that is was all ok. I had a response to an email I sent regarding the water coming out of the tap brown.
We are now looking to move coz this agent is utterly hopeless.
D
DWolfe | www.homestagers.com.au
http://www.homestagers.com.au
Email MeYikes, it seems incompetence is widespread. I just thought it was Kalgoorlie because towns like that always struggle for decent staff in service industries.
I was told that about 70% of residential tenancies were owned by out of town investors, so if it's useful, my two cents about Kalgoorlie PMs…
Avoid First National for residential – never returned calls when I wanted to inspect rentals – I saw properties I was interested in sitting vacant for weeks.
Avoid John Matthew Sons – as a tenant, maintenance averaged 6 to 7 weeks, even on things that should have been considered urgent. The owner was used as an excuse most of the time – may have been true but no idea how much the owner was actually told.
Murphy Boyden is the biggest outfit in town with lots of staff (they absorbed LJ Hooker) but they were very brusque when I enquired about inspecting a rental – the girl at the desk barely looked up and said "it's 2-2.15 next Wednesday" without so much as a courtesy Hello or Can I help you with anything else.
Goldfields Realty were the agents recommended to us when we moved to Kal, and were a pleasure to deal with when we enquired about property – prompt and professional with the best customer service.
The Professionals laughed me off when I enquired about commercial property renting below 50K a year on a 12 month lease – but there is plenty out there, and I ended up with one from First National, who were very friendly but didn't do an ingoing inspection and the lease didn't arrive until months after we'd taken possession – meanwhile there were plenty of maintenance issues to argue over.
my salary excluding car phone etc is 75000 a year,
my fiance earns about the sameI walked into a nice unit near the golf course when we first arrived in the NT, we are renting 6 months before we purchase,
upon entry (I was wearing a singlet and shorts) the property manager said "Hi can i help you?" in front of about four other couples looking. i replied with "im just interested in renting this property, are there any forms to register my interest?"HER REPLY which i get angry even remembering, was whilst smirking at a woman next to her was "Well, this property is actually more suitable for professional couples.."
Are you kidding? i said "Right well i will take a form, and hand it back to your office." After which i went to the next property up the road where unfotunately the same woman was managing. i wanted to leave then and there,but my partner would clip my ears if i passed up this very tidy place. i walked in with about 7 others, inspected, and on the way out we were in a line and she pased her card and a form to register for the property to every one. when it was my turn about sixth in line, she just said "thanks for coming" and handed me nothing.
funny thing is, the owner of th company i work for buys horses with the owner of the property management company concerned, and called him, asking why his general manager wasn't considered a professional… the lady was made to apologise, and rightly so i believe, i was kind of offended.
regardless of what one thinks i believe its only being professional to treat everyone the same until they hand in there references or whatever.
unbelievable!
Ben and Mina,
That is pretty disgusting! I worked in sales for about 8 years and I remember helping a customer who no one else would based on how they were dressed. Meanwhile they bought something VERY expensive, they were farmers and had plenty of cash but were not dolled up. It is a very important lesson to learn not to judge people based on how they dress or look or anything. I look like a bum most days of the week, great disguise if you ask me, it sorts out the decent people to deal with
Property managers (anyone in a service industry really!) should never judge anyone, how do they know what you will be like as a paying tenant from what clothes you are wearing!
D
DWolfe | www.homestagers.com.au
http://www.homestagers.com.au
Email MeYes exactly,
its funny, a smart man told me when i was 18 "some people look the part but arent going anywhere fast, others dont have to prove anything to anyone because they are to busy making moves"
i am friends with a farmers son, RIDICULOUS wealth, but humble and happy wearing a swandri! ! ! (dont know if they have them in australia? google it!)
you wouldnt know until you pulled up to their amazing home they were wealthy, and i remember he was once held for questioning becasue a policeman said there was "no way this guy could afford a mercedes" – driving dads car and they thought he had stolen it!
gumboots and expensive cars dont mix!
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