DIY landlord rental cheap

Hi all

My realestate agent wanted $900 to find me a tenant for my property in Melbourne + $100 for internet advertising. This does not include property management which I always do myself.

In my view it is not worth $900 to pay an agent to find a tenant in a market where there are lots of tenants. They will open the property for 15 minutes, do some background checks, an inspection report, and whammo I am charged $900...

Anyway, I found a way to advertise myself on Realestate.com.au as a landlord without paying exorbidant agent fees.

This agent below charged me $125 and listed the ad on my behalf for as long as I like on realestate.com.au! Plus they do a tenancy database search in that price!

Yipeee.... :D

I hope this helps other people out there looking for tenants but don't want to get ripped off.

http://www.landlordschoice.com.au/services.aspx
 
I love the way that everyone seems to think that PMs should basically work for free!!

A new tenancy will generally involve 15-20 hours worth of work when it is done properly. The condition report alone will take me 5 hours to do (granted this can be done a lot faster but i like to be very detailed and take 50-100 photos for each property) not to mention the inspections, checking applications, calling, following up, preparing lease documentation, signing the tenant up etc etc etc

there is a saying you pay peanuts get monkeys....

Best wishes with DIY, i think this is a great service for those landlords who want to do it themselves
 
I love the way that everyone seems to think that PMs should basically work for free!!

A new tenancy will generally involve 15-20 hours worth of work when it is done properly. The condition report alone will take me 5 hours to do (granted this can be done a lot faster but i like to be very detailed and take 50-100 photos for each property.

there is a saying you pay peanuts get monkeys....

Best wishes with DIY, i think this is a great service for those landlords who want to do it themselves

Sorry I didn't mean to offend anyone - it comes down to perceived value. For the $875 I save - I am happy to answer phone calls and take people through my own property, etc. Some people do not want the hassle and are happy to let an agent do that.

The main issue I have found as a landlord looking for tenants is that I can't list on realestate.com.au as a private landlord - which in melbourne is a good source of tenants.

The landlord DIY service is only one option. To me, as an experienced landlord with multiple IPs, I can see the value. and it also includes proforma lease documentation.

Maybe others will not see the value. I am just putting that choice out there as I think for $125 it is a bargain and I have not seen anyone talk about it on this forum.
 
Hallelujah!! About time someone started a service like this.

Being a private landlord, this has long been a rant of mine. Advertising in the newspaper is just not reaching the people who are looking for a rental. Probably more than 80% look on the major sites, who will not allow private landlords to advertise, for who knows what reason?

Anyway, do you mind me asking how you found this company? We have increasingly used a local agent who takes one week's rent plus GST. We are happy to pay this to get the quick response, but would prefer to do it ourselves, especially if it costs less. If we can get our own places on the big sites for $125 then this is the way we will go.

Thanks for the link.
 
I love the way that everyone seems to think that PMs should basically work for free!!

I certainly don't think that way.

A new tenancy will generally involve 15-20 hours worth of work when it is done properly. The condition report alone will take me 5 hours to do (granted this can be done a lot faster but i like to be very detailed and take 50-100 photos for each property) not to mention the inspections, checking applications, calling, following up, preparing lease documentation, signing the tenant up etc etc etc

I am more than happy when I have paid one week's rent for work done, but absolutely nowhere near the hours you are talking about. Most recent one was one phone call. We were still happy to have a tenant quickly, but we just want access to the site, and we will do everything ourselves.

Of course, we would pay for the extra service, if we wanted it.


there is a saying you pay peanuts get monkeys....

Best wishes with DIY, i think this is a great service for those landlords who want to do it themselves

I would love to know more about this company, how long it has been going, and how they plan to get their services "out there".
 
Hallelujah!! About time someone started a service like this.

Being a private landlord, this has long been a rant of mine. Advertising in the newspaper is just not reaching the people who are looking for a rental. Probably more than 80% look on the major sites, who will not allow private landlords to advertise, for who knows what reason?

Anyway, do you mind me asking how you found this company? We have increasingly used a local agent who takes one week's rent plus GST. We are happy to pay this to get the quick response, but would prefer to do it ourselves, especially if it costs less. If we can get our own places on the big sites for $125 then this is the way we will go.

Thanks for the link.

hi wylie - 1 week rent plus GST is good! None of the agents I contacted would do it for less than 2 weeks - but I was asking for a lease only - not including property management.

In terms of finding this place - it was a fluke. I was doing a google search for a "national tenancy check" service (as a private landlord) and found this site.

I contacted them yesterday and my advert is already up on www.realestate.com.au.

Let me know how you go - I am happy to DIY as well.
 
Mum has just had tenants move in this week. If we knew this site was available two weeks ago, we would already be using it :D.

I do know there are agents who will do "under the table" deals for $120 to list houses and nothing more. This is all we want. We will do everything else.

One friend who recently organised a local agent to do this, was disappointed when he didn't follow through, was too slow to get her listing up. Luckily she had not paid any money up front.

The big sites are silly if they think people are not going to find a way to get on the site, but I am much more comfortable using a legitimate site. I know most of the local agents personally, and would not feel comfortable asking them to do something for me that could potentially get them into trouble, even if they were happy to do so.

So...... once again, thank you so much for posting this.
 
I love the way that everyone seems to think that PMs should basically work for free!!

A new tenancy will generally involve 15-20 hours worth of work when it is done properly. The condition report alone will take me 5 hours to do (granted this can be done a lot faster but i like to be very detailed and take 50-100 photos for each property) not to mention the inspections, checking applications, calling, following up, preparing lease documentation, signing the tenant up etc etc etc

there is a saying you pay peanuts get monkeys....

Best wishes with DIY, i think this is a great service for those landlords who want to do it themselves

How many properties do you manage and how many new tenants would you find each year?

Cheers

Pete
 
Noooo! Really? :D

And I'd like to know "are they operating with the knowledge of realestate.com.au?" ;)

As far as I can see in their web site terms and conditions - these guys are licensed realestate agents. So why would listing adverts just like any other agent does trouble realestate.com.au? They forward all inquiries through the agency to the owner.

I think there are agents on this website that are only interested in protecting their own wallet.
 
So why would listing adverts just like any other agent does trouble realestate.com.au?
Because I'm pretty sure that it's a violation of realestate.com.au's terms of service. They've built their website to the point where it's the place to go to look for property to buy or rent. It may be annoying to those who want to sell/let privately, but it's only natural that they'd want to protect the market power that they've grown, by trying to shut out private parties.
 
I think there are agents on this website that are only interested in protecting their own wallet.
And yes of course they're trying to protect their own wallet - don't we all?

You're trying to protect your own wallet by avoiding forking out $875. And I have no problem with that - but why is it all of a sudden a sin when the other party does it? :confused:
 
Because I'm pretty sure that it's a violation of realestate.com.au's terms of service. They've built their website to the point where it's the place to go to look for property to buy or rent. It may be annoying to those who want to sell/let privately, but it's only natural that they'd want to protect the market power that they've grown, by trying to shut out private parties.

Fair enough - I have no idea what the terms of service are so you know more about it than me. These agents are still listing the advert, fielding all questions from prospective tenants and then forwarding them to the owner. They give assistance with the lease documents, conduct the tenancy search.

What is a real estate agent? As the above sounds like a realestate agent to me - it is just that they are not doing 100% of the work to tenant the property. I have had listings through an agent where I have run additional openings (as the agent wanted extra to open the property more than once) - the agent had no problem with me to conduct the extra openings. Is that too against realestate.com.au terms?

ps... I note you use the term "private parties" - I am not listing privately - i am using a realestate agent....
 
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I had a quick look at the site and it appears that they are licenced and it appears that is is legitimate.

Anyway, I am prepared to give it a go. Nothing to lose as far as I can see.
 
I love the way that everyone seems to think that PMs should basically work for free!!

A new tenancy will generally involve 15-20 hours worth of work when it is done properly. The condition report alone will take me 5 hours to do (granted this can be done a lot faster but i like to be very detailed and take 50-100 photos for each property) not to mention the inspections, checking applications, calling, following up, preparing lease documentation, signing the tenant up etc etc etc

there is a saying you pay peanuts get monkeys....

Best wishes with DIY, i think this is a great service for those landlords who want to do it themselves

I agree but why focus on clients with the wrong attitudes? Not all landlords are good business! Some of them need to be self managers. It's the 80/20 rule.
 
I agree but why focus on clients with the wrong attitudes? Not all landlords are good business! Some of them need to be self managers. It's the 80/20 rule.

Not all property managers are good either. Does wanting to do my own management mean I have a "bad attitude"? I don't agree.

And you would have to agree that some of the stories on this forum of how properties are managed by "professionals" leave a lot to be desired, would not not?

That was rather a cheap shot.
 
It's quite natural and expected for two opposing parties in a contract to disagree.....it's almost expected.

In this particular case, Xenia and wylie are discussing a leasing management contract.

One party to the contract ideally wants to be paid the maximum possible amount whilst performing the minimum possible amount.

Conversely, the other party to the contract wants to pay the minimum possible amount whilst receiving the maximum possible amount.

The only common factor between the parties to the contract is they both want the transaction completed in the minimum amount of time.

The only thing to remember is which hat the person is wearing at the time.
 
Actually, as the landlord, I am not interested in getting any more than I am prepared to pay for and am quite prepared to pay a fair amount for the work done. Whilst my mum just paid $506 to an agent who literally fielded one call, I don't believe that is fair. However, she was happy to pay, as there is no other choice as the newspaper adverts are as good as useless.

Because this agent was taking the week's rent plus GST, mum did allow her to do the checks and prepare the documents. The checks done were employer checks, no leaving the desk and filling in the lease form. We took over from there. However, we do this all the time, and were quite happy to have that one phone call and do everything else.

If the agent had been prepared to accept, say $125 for simply fielding the call, it still would have been very good pay for the five minutes that the call took. I actually approached this PM's boss, a family friend, to see if he would take a small fee to simply list it, but he offered instead to do it for the usual week's rent plus GST. I understand that perhaps he was risking a backlash from the big site and we were happy to go ahead under his terms.

I hope this newly discovered site lives long and prospers.
 
I think this is an acceptable option for private landlords if they are blocked from most advertising avenues.

I'm a tenant and I woudl like to find a private rental instead of dealing with a PM. I feel like I get told one thing, the owners get told something else, and the PM gets all the knowledge while the other parties get whatever parts the PM chooses to disclose - or not disclose. I realise this is not across the board but it has been my personal experience of late so that is all I'm basing it on.

When I was trying to find a rental in Calamvale in Brisbane in December 08 I rang probably 10 agents in the area and servicing the area. The number of agents who would not let me inspect a property I was interested in renting was amazing. I would constantly be told I had to wait for a viewing, even if that was in a week's time, or if there weren't enough people interested in attending the viewing, it would be cancelled and postponed a week. All the while I was standing there, money in my account, motivated and ready to sign a lease and take good care of the property.

I often wondered how many landlords were left with no rental income for weeks at a time and had no idea there were prospective tenants wanting to look and potentially rent but PMs were deciding who could view and when. It made me wish I could rind up a landlord and tell them that an agency was making me wait three weeks before I could view their vacant house because it didn't fit in with the agent's schedule. You don't have to be a landlord to see that those kind of practices are hurting tenants and property investors but I get the impression landlords wanting to manage their own properties don't get a lot of options.

If I saw a place that I liked and was privately managed, it wouldn't bother me a bit. Sadly, I've seen very few in Brisbane and wouldn't have the first clue on how to locate a private rental home. In fact, I would probably be even more motivated to take care of the home and perhaps even make agreed improvements at my own cost if I knew the owner would see that I treat my rental house like it was my own home and that I was taking good care of it. That would be a win/win situation in my books.

Cheers, Lu
 
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