Finding Tenants

[AndrewS]

I am considering managing my own property. I have a rather basic quesiton for those out there who manage there own properties.

How do you find tenants?
Where do you advertise?
Do realestate agents offer a service where they will find the tenant for you for the usual fee, or will they only offer this service if you let them manage your property?
Do web sites on the internet offer a service where you can advertise your own property for a fee?

As I said, rather basic quesitons, but I would appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction.

Thank-you in advance.


Andrew

 

[alexlee]

Andrew, may I ask why you're looking to self-manage? If you plan to build up a portfolio of multiple properties, would it be better to learn to manage RE agents, instead?
Alex

 

[Ross]

AndrewS
Many will argue not to manage yourself however I have 3 rentals that I manage. The key is getting very good tenants. Mine all pay rent via fortnightly direct debit and I might here from them / see them once or twice a year. When I visit I do an "unofficial" inspection ....as I said, good tenants take car of the place as if it were their own.
All the standard rent agreements you can get from the Landlords guide which in WA is free from the DOCEP ( not sure about other states)
Last tenant I got through advertising on Domain.com.au. Costs $110 and worked very well for me.
Dont get greedy with the rent, I generally charge market rate or fractionally under to get a bigger pool of prospective tenants looking.
Some R/E agents will just find a tenant for you ....usually charge at least one weeks rent. Ongoing rental management is usually around 8.5% of the weekly rent.
Hope this helps
Ross

 

[kelvinh]

Yep.. I manage ours.. its very easy to do... mind you ive never had any issues so that does make it easy...

"How do you find tenants? "
Advertising through newspaper...

"Where do you advertise? "
Newspaper... In WA.. the Saturday paper has alot better result than the Sunday paper... in my experience..

"Do realestate agents offer a service where they will find the tenant for you for the usual fee, or will they only offer this service if you let them manage your property? "
I have seen them offer this exact service .. although Im unsure of the price...

"Do web sites on the internet offer a service where you can advertise your own property for a fee?"
Im sure they do... but I find the that the turnaround is so quick newspaper is the way to go...

It would probably make more sense to do the tenant selection part...yourself.. do the open for inspections.. have a quick chat with the prospective tenants... you can find out alot about people this way... and you really do get a good feel for who is right for your property... this with the normal checks and balances in tenant selection and your on your way...

Good tenant selection is key...

Mind you next time I will be getting a managing agent.. Mainly to take some emotion out of my decision making...

BTW The DOCEP booklet that Ross mentioned is great... details everything...

 

[Xenia]

A real estate agent may be able to give your property more exposure when advertising. We try to do 3 forms of advertising at once:

Newspaper
Signs at front (for some properties)
Internet, we have our own website as well as real estate.com.au

We also have brochures of the properties as well as a database of tenants that we sourced from other properties (private landlords generally don't have access to these).

The result (I think) is that we can rent properties quicker and get better quality tenants than private landlords can do. Not because property managers are smarter, but because they do it all day every day while landlords with a few rentals may do it once every now and then while maintaining a job somewhere else.

The trick is to find a good property manager

 

[wylie]

I have managed our IPs and never paid a manager. Kelvin has answered most of your questions but the only thing I would add is that I have only ever twice found a tenant through an agency. The deal is usually that they take one week's rent to find you a tenant.

About 15 years ago a managing agent found me a tenant, an ex-hooker who had done time - gee thanks. Got rid of that problem for the agent and handed it to me. Luckily there were no real issues.

Another time, an agent found us tenants who were fine.

What I have found over the past ten years or so is that they just don't bother to even call me with potential tenants. I do understand that they want to fill their clients' rentals first, but I don't know why they don't just say "no thanks - we don't want your business".

I never bother now. I put Wednesday and Saturday ads in the paper. I have never had a house empty more than two weeks, often we have one week gap and tomorrow (Friday) one tenant is moving out, and new one moves in Saturday. No days lost - yeah!!

I have had very few problems, but I grew up watching my parents manage tenants and I am not challenged by it at all.

Give it a go, save yourself some money and if it is too hard, hand it over.

Good luck, Wylie.

 

[geoffw]

I've had two multiple tenant properties.

1. Three cottages under one title. The PM did a terrible job (there's a thread somewhere about the PM from hell). I self manage those. The tenants have been long term, so there's not a lot of issues.

2. A block of flats. 9 1BR units. I've had a great PM who has looked after all of that. The PM fees have been worth their weight in gold. I would not have been able to do nearly as good a job without them. They've gone to tribunal (pre existing tenants) on my behalf; sat for a morning while an evicted tenant has claimed his goods; and sorted out things when a tenant (elderly) has died. I'm happy to pay them for that. The costs to me, if I even had the knowledge to do what had to be done, would have been far higher if I had been running the show myself.