Advice on self managing

[islandgirl]

I've been getting increasingly frustrated by the poor service of our PM. Their inaction on fixing a problem in the bathroom as lead to me having to repaint the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom ceilings of overcome a mould problem. And then we had to organise the repairs ourselves because they were incapable of doing so.

I've been to the other agents in the area but they seem as poor as these guys and I've haven't had good feed back on any of them.

So now I have 3 options.
I either stay with the existing agent and manage them so that they do the proper job.
I go to a new agent in hope that they may be better
or I do it myself.
From what I have seen the do it yourself option is not so hard. The tenants seem pretty good and we live only a short distance away. So my question is what is involved in taking over the rental management of a property? What notifications/forms do I have to fill out. Do I need a copy of the existing lease or do I get them to sign a new one? Any help and advise would be appreciated. The property is in Queensland.

Thanks all

 

[Magsie]

I can't offer any advice on how to extricate yourself from your contract with your PM, except of course to look at your contract (I think ours is 30 days notice).

I can highly recommend self-managing. We have one property that we use a PM for (useless and we are currently taking the tenant to the Tribunal), and one that a colleague encouraged us to self-manage. Golden words of advice from her "were no one will be as fussy as who you put in there as you. Agents just want to get someone in and move onto the next one". So true. As long as you read up on the law properly.

When showing properties to begin with there can always be two of you, one to show people the property and let them in, and one to show the facilities. So many times on Agent , it's just one Agent, and I see prospective tenants missing out on seeing the pool, gym, rooftop terrace or whatever because physically the agent can't be in 2 places at once.

You know IMMEDIATELY if the tenant is late with the rent. We had no idea the tenant we had was late virtually from the start because we just got our money at the end of the month. As you get the money straight away it helps with cash flow (better it sitting in your bank account than the agents).

In the PM-managed property the tenant hasn't paid rent for 8 weeks and the Agent has abandoned us, and I am having to lodge the application, attend the tribunal etc... and I'm having trouble getting the documents from the Agent! If it was the self-managed one, I would have the information at my fingertips in a shoebox in our spare bedroom!

The only thing I like about the Agent-Managed property is the statement at tax time. We can just present it to the Accountant whereas with the Self-Managed one we have to spend a couple of hours (once a year) entering the expenses into a spreadsheet.

Good luck!

 

[Rob Williams]

I'm a big fan of self management. It's easy for me though as all of my IP's are close to the CBD. Even if they weren't so close, it would still work as on-site visits are not very common.
I manage 7 and have systems in place to make all aspects of the "business" as efficient as possible. Otherwise it could become a bit of a chore.
For example, I schedule renewals for the same time each year (January as it's the peak letting month) and have all rents paid on the same day. So I only have to check the bank account online once a fortnight and I do the renewals in one hit once a year.
I do most of my own repairs etc, but only because I'm single, so don't have anyone nagging me to do jobs around the house and therefore have a bit of time on my hands.
I choose my tenants very carefully and have yet to have a bad experience.
Not sure about the process of transitioning from PM to SM. Never done it.

 

[Xenia]

to take the property from the current managing office you would need:
A tenant ledger
current lease, including additional clauses
ingoing inspection
any routine inspections they did
All past statements and bills
an ammendment to the lodge bond advising change of management

you would need to arrange a date to pick up the file (according to your management contract with them) and keys for the property.

They would notify the tenant of an end date for managment and you need to notify them of a method to pay and contact details for you instead of the managing office.

The responsibility will then be on you including all legal obligations.

There are some advantages to self managing, learning, saving money and some agencies, especially sales-focused ones do a herrendous job at managing the property.

To date however (just our experience in a property management office) I have never seen a private landlord do a good job, not ever! Legal paperwork is filled out wrong to the point that it cancels the contract. Some are even fraudulent, things put in after signing etc.
inspections are not done correctly or are deemed to be interfering with tenant's quiet enjoyment
legal forms are not served or time or served incorrectly
there is a lack of knowledge of tenant and landlord responsibilities.
Tenants are not screened properly (we even found some that are blacklisted)

We have incorporated costs when taking over properties from a private landlord because of the complete mess they are in, that's just to cover the extra work we need to do to clean them up.

Now all this may be because we are an agency and they only give them to us when they had enough of missmanaging and there may be private landlords out there doing a fantastic job, don't know, I have not seen any to date!

However, we've had some shockers come through from other agencies as well so I can understand your frustration.

My honest opinion is to find a "good" agency as they can save you alot of time and hastle, time is much more important than saving money.

I would never manage my own properties!

In the absence of a good agency however then?????

 

[kissfan]

Hi Islandgirl.

Where are your IP's located?

Perhaps somewhere here can recommend a good PM in that area, should you decide to give another PM a go.

Regards
Marty

 

[wylie]

To date however (just our experience in a property management office) I have never seen a private landlord do a good job, not ever!

Xenia, with all due respect, I cannot believe you have never, ever seen a private landlord do a good job. But just maybe, seeing you are a property manager, you may possibly only see landlords who cannot manage their property, and want to hand on a problem to you.

Island Girl, my parents have managed their IPs for 33 years and I have been doing it for my own for 30 years. Luckily in Queensland we have the RTA which has the most comprehensive website with all the answers you could possibly need to answer any question you may have.

If you cannot find an answer, they are a phone call away, and I have always found them helpful.

One thing I would say is that you need to read their website to get a good working knowledge of the rules and forms you will need. I am not sure, but I gather from this forum that the other states may not have such an easy to use reference as our RTA.

We have had a few problem tenants, and when something crops up, the first place to turn to is the RTA website. As Xenia says, it is imperative that you know your rights and responsibilities.

I find self-managing a doddle, but have had a few sleepless nights when we have had issues that have been troublesome. However, reading of some of the sleepless nights that some people have WITH a property manager, I really think you should give it a try.

If you find it too onerous, hand it on to a better PM. To be honest, I like the interaction with my tenants and I like to hear first hand of any issues that need fixing so I can send hubby over to fix it

We generally don't hear from our tenants and we actually don't do inspections. From what I hear of some of the other horror stories, some PM's inspections leave a lot to be desired, as in your own case you have quoted.

Don't be put off by scary stories about how hard it is to self-manage. Give it a try and see how you go. Could you possibly manage your IP worse than the PM you have now?

 

[RumpledElf]

Last place I rented had the agent from hell - we got inspections sure, but they rarely inspected ours, they tended to get unit 1 and 10 mixed up a lot so they'd send a letter to us at #1 and we'd be home all day and they'd inspect unit #10 and then never return phone calls or come back and inspect the right unit. Fortunately by the time I got sick of the idiots and the electricity bills from hell from the constantly on HWS and wanted to leasebreak and get the hell out of there (I was only renting that unit because that was one of the rare few properties I was actually able to inspect being in Adelaide 3 days a week - noone else was willing to do inspections after work on those 3 days), the owner wanted to sell and the agent was more than happy to sell it. They were nice and snappy and returned my bond after I lodged my own bond release form 3 months after I left and got the tenancies tribunal to ring them and hurry them up.

Never rented a house with a good PM. Ever. In 10 years.

 

[Jacque]

I self-manage but have PM's for other properties. Mixed bag really. The interstate ones I find most frustrating, as the PM I have used to be really attentive and efficient but has dropped the ball in recent times, with quotes taking mths not weeks to get organised for example. IF I lived near the properties, I'd definitely be self-managing.

Having said this, though, one that I do self-manage is a 6hr drive away However, the tenant is heavenly, long term and the property very low maintenance. Horses for courses, I suppose.

I've thought about sacking a local PM for my Sydney IP but you know... it's the paperwork and hassle of doing so. Also not having statements is a pain at tax time etc. All comes down to how much time and effort one's willing to expound!!

 

[jaycee]

To date however (just our experience in a property management office) I have never seen a private landlord do a good job, not ever!

there may be private landlords out there doing a fantastic job, don't know, I have not seen any to date!

I am not sure Xenia if you are saying you have never seen a private landloard do a good job, or you have never seen a private landlord doing a good job hand a property to your firm to manage ?

If the former, you have surely interacted with such people on this forum haven't you (forget me with my 1 little property, I mean others who have been here much longer) ? surely you are not suggeting they do not exist which is what it sounded like.

Many exist, just so you know

 

[twobobsworth]

For those that self manage how many hours a month would you spend "managing" the property?

 

[wylie]

For me personally, I simply write out receipts as payments come in. Right now with two leases due for renewal, I have contacted both lots of tenants, and followed up with letters dropped in their (local) letterboxes with our offers for a new lease.

One has accepted a new twelve month lease and the other is yet to get back to me. I will spend probably a half hour preparing the new lease (downloading it from the net after filling in the blanks) and another half hour going to the house to sign the lease and have it witnessed.

If the second lot sign up for another lease it will be the same. If not, we will no doubt spend more time as we will hold an open house. We would also take that opportunity to trim any overgrown bushes etc which is not a "must do" but something we like to do between tenants to keep it looking its best.

Once tenants are signed up, it is pretty much "hands off" until the next lease comes due.

I don't use spreadsheets for my tax, so I don't even spend time doing that housekeeping task. My mum seems to spend much more time (more properties than us) but she has a more complicated system she uses for tax time and does use spreadsheets. (Spreadsheets do my head in .)

 

[islandgirl]

Thanks all for your advise. Knowing the selection of agents available I think I might have to give it a go. Can anyone tell me the appropriate websites for downloading forms and for checking tenants histories.

 

[wylie]

You can get absolutely everything you need from the RTA website.

Personally, we don't check histories. Being a private landlord we don't have access to TICA. I believe there are other places we can check, but we use the good old "gut instinct". It rarely lets us down.

You will hear that this is risky but let's face it, PMs can put in crook tenants just as easily as I can .

I don't say it would suit everybody, but that is our main basis for judging prospective tenants. I generally get a feel within about five seconds of meeting someone.

 

[weg]

I am with TICA and I'm a private landlord however I don't think all bad tenants are on their database - very few I suspect apart from the tenants from hell.

When I was selecting tenants I made a point of telling them that when bringing in their references it 'really helps' them if they can also bring in an electronic printout or reciepts of rent paid in the previous few weeks as well as the last bond return reciept.

That other checks and gut feeling helped secure fantastic tenants. If you are confident and learn what you need to do to manage tenants then you would do well. Nobody will care about your property like you do.

 

[inspectionangel]

I think u batter do it yourself for that I have found some information for you concerning about building inspection in Queensland. But if you want to get a new agent then again within the same site you may get solution.