So twice in 3 months I could have paid a lot of unnecessary money for property "maintenance".
3 months ago the property manager (from a fairly typical large national RE company with two names separated by &) rang and told me that the tenant complained that the front door of the house was suddenly unable to be locked. It was in the afternoon, she asked if she had my consent to arrange a locksmith urgently to ensure tenant's safety that night.
I decided to drive 45km to inspect the lock myself. An hour later I arrived at the house and it turned out that my tenants pushed a button on the lock that kept it in an open position. I pressed another button and lo and behold, the lock works again.
The PM's office was about 1km from this property and she did not bother take that 5 minute drive to have a look herself.
I spent the hour driving home thinking about that fact.
Yesterday another property manager (from a different fairly typical large national RE company with two names separated by &) emailed me and forwarded a long email from my tenant living in another property. The stove and cooktop had apparently stopped working suddenly. She wanted to arranged for an electrician urgently as the tenants could not cook.
I told her that it was strange if an element needed replacing then the other bits should work. I asked her to check with tenants that it was not the circuit breaker. I told her I would go there today to have a look.
Today I was pleasantly informed that the tenants had "followed her advice" and worked it all out. I asked her if it was simply the circuit breaker jumping she said it was.
Her office was about 15min away from my unit.
Obviously while this may start recurring in the future and an electrician may need to be called (non-urgently), it might also never happen again.
But I wonder what property managers do apart from sitting at a desk bouncing tenants' emails and phone calls to me, whilst charging me $X%+GST for collecting rent on my behalf. Have they not got the responsibility nowadays to, go and have a good GD look?!
Rant over.
3 months ago the property manager (from a fairly typical large national RE company with two names separated by &) rang and told me that the tenant complained that the front door of the house was suddenly unable to be locked. It was in the afternoon, she asked if she had my consent to arrange a locksmith urgently to ensure tenant's safety that night.
I decided to drive 45km to inspect the lock myself. An hour later I arrived at the house and it turned out that my tenants pushed a button on the lock that kept it in an open position. I pressed another button and lo and behold, the lock works again.
The PM's office was about 1km from this property and she did not bother take that 5 minute drive to have a look herself.
I spent the hour driving home thinking about that fact.
Yesterday another property manager (from a different fairly typical large national RE company with two names separated by &) emailed me and forwarded a long email from my tenant living in another property. The stove and cooktop had apparently stopped working suddenly. She wanted to arranged for an electrician urgently as the tenants could not cook.
I told her that it was strange if an element needed replacing then the other bits should work. I asked her to check with tenants that it was not the circuit breaker. I told her I would go there today to have a look.
Today I was pleasantly informed that the tenants had "followed her advice" and worked it all out. I asked her if it was simply the circuit breaker jumping she said it was.
Her office was about 15min away from my unit.
Obviously while this may start recurring in the future and an electrician may need to be called (non-urgently), it might also never happen again.
But I wonder what property managers do apart from sitting at a desk bouncing tenants' emails and phone calls to me, whilst charging me $X%+GST for collecting rent on my behalf. Have they not got the responsibility nowadays to, go and have a good GD look?!
Rant over.