So whether you have a palace or a little shack for an investment, best practise these days is to hire a professional to do the job.
Which sounds easy but quite often from experience a bad Property Manager can be a wolf in sheeps clothing.
So I have written you my 6 top tips on how to weed the good from the bad! They are definately not what you think!
1) Negotiating skills. A PM will need to negotiate just about everyday of the working week. From lease renewals, maintenance, cleaning, difficult tenants, rent collection …the list goes on. It’s imperative to have sales skills if they don’t then they can not complete the tasks at hand successfully.
2) People Skills. Tenants and Owners come in various shapes, sizes and cultures. I’ve worked with some seriously racist PMs in my time who have deliberately not put perfect tenants in a property based on their culture. We absolutely must base all our descions on the best application at the time NOT on race/sex/atheistics. You simply can not judge a book by its cover. I know sometimes I do the school drop off looking like a homeless person but truthfully I’ve had a late night with sick kids.
3) Organisational skills. Every PM must must must have an every day task list, an ideal week, several white boards, calenders, reminders, intrays and a clean inbox. Ask to see a copy of their ideal week.
4) Reference(s). Every great PM will be able to provide you the name and number of a current owner and tenant for you to call for reference. I’m not talking about the Facebook popularity contest either- you know the one in groups where someone asks for a good agent and all the agents friends pipe up and start recommending them? No I mean real people, real experiences. Look up the agency’s google plus review too, that’s where a lot of unhappy customers go these days.
5) Marketing. I do not see why rental marketing is any different to sales marketing. A good PM will have a premium marketing strategy available just like the sales reps. Professional Photography, highlight listings on portals, staged property are some of the features @ Mandurah Property Management. Also each Monday you should be recieving market feedback on your current for lease home. Eg- how many hits, how many enquiry, how many viewings, how many applications WEEKLY.
A good PM will simply not ask for a price reduction without market justification!!!
6) Tenant Database. An established agency has many many tenants already leasing houses from them. A good PM should know 2-3 months in advance whether their tenant is staying or going and/or needing a property different. They should also have every single past enquiry logged into a database with prospective tenants. In poor markets such as WA currently a good PM will be proactive and hold onto their good tenants with both hands. Ask to see a copy of their database!
Thanks for reading my blog 🤗🤗🤗🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Bloggin' with Belinda 