How does everyone feel about the % fee for property management

[Sez]

Does your PM fees includes the PM for going to inspect a maintenance "request"?

My PM in Melb West rang me for a few items to be fixed but she never verified it with the tenant. Things like HWS can't be turn on, water on both toilet bowls so suspecting leaking, etc.

HOw hard it is to go to the property and inspect it to make sure it's really a maintenance issue and not because the tenant didn't know how to light up the HWS? or kids splashing water in the bathroom?

I asked for the PM to go and have a look, she said I could go myself if I wanted to but she wouldn't.

So I was thinking why should i ever bother to pay her the management fees if all she does is send tradies out whenever the tenants claimed something?

She said tradies will report to agent if it's tenant's fault however, i doubt this as I've seen too many tradies whom will help the tenants by giving wrong reports.

I think this is a fine line you bring up. I rely on my tradies who I have been working with for years to give me good information. They will ALWAYS tell me if it is the tenants fault and then the tenant gets invoiced. I am not a plumber so I can go and look at the maintenance items like you mentioned, however, when I get there I'm only going to have my opinion on the matter which isn't as good as the opinion of a trained plumber. When ever my tenants complain the HWS isn't working I let them know that if the plumber attends and it is only the pilot light and no problems with the unit then they will be invoiced, not the owner. This means 1/2 of the calls for HWS don't make it to the plumber and 99% of the ones that do make it that far actually require repairs.

Some maintenance items require a property managers attendance, however, we are there every 6 months and it muddies the issue if we are walking in and out when we aren't allowed to be there to inspect. Thats why all tradies are checked out so well before ever being used and most PM's use trades that they have worked with for many years so they know only legitimate issues will go to the landlord and someone trusted is attending.

There is FAR more to managing your property than just sending out trades for maintenance issues. .

 

[badcliq]

hey Sez, which areas do you manage? Would be happy to let you do it if you service my area?

 

[Sez]

hey Sez, which areas do you manage? Would be happy to let you do it if you service my area?

And here I was thinking that you might find my response a little rude (which wasn't my intention)!! I've PM'd you .

 

[willister]

Hi All

Do you think it’s right to charge the same % fee for a $300pw property compared to a $600 property

Same work for both properties but double the fees.

Interested in your thoughts and feedback

The feedback I am getting from the investors I have onboard has been positive.

Feedback from other agents not so good but I expected that.

I've always found % fees were very highly dependent on area and not so much price of rent per week etc.

For an inner city subrub townhouse I had, almost all agents didn't go below 5%, no agent budged below this. Though, this was at the property peaks. Moving out a bit into the heart of subrubia, I had a 3% on anothe property.

Having gained sufficient rental experience, I've gone without agents for my residential properties except in one subrub - which I found 1) I lived too far to really manage it myself 2) Being a "rough area" most tenants were really troublesome to deal with, so I left it up to my PMs for a small 3% fee, was well worth it.

It's not so much how expensive the rental is, more what kind of tenants you have to deal with (in consideration of that, there is no way we can preempt this kind of thing). If it's really bad tenants then the chase up work agents do etc. and screening (regardless of quality of service) then I found the fees to be pretty fair.