Property Managers advertising on Gumtree a concern

[retailer]

Are you sure it's the owner, I've had one of my RE.com ads duplicated and put on Gumtree by a scammer, puts his own contact details in and tries to get a bond and deposit upfront

 

[sean1967]

Think I have lost some people !
Because I cant name the agencies I was hoping someone would understand what I was getting at.

I am aware of agents and have been told verbally by them they dont put ads for rental properties on Gumtree it is the owners doing it.

I then asked why would an owner go to all that trouble and why you the agent dont just put it on Gumtree yourselves.


Gumtree is free so why wouldnt an agent splash their agency name all over Gumtree when advertising a rental property for free but they dont. The say its the owner doing it.

Sorry I have lost people as looks as though it will remain a mystery and this topic best sent to bed !
Sean

 

[sean1967]

Hello Retailer

Have just seen your posting. Yes have definately seen ads put in by agents and its the same no for the PM. No owner would go to all that trouble

Also in todays paper was an article you are talking about.

People taking ads from Realestate.com and putting them on Gumtree and asking for bonds.

So now genuine agents advertising on Gumtree and scammers going to be hard to work out who is genuine and who is not at first.

But anyone asking for money to be wired is a give away !

 

[Curlytops]

One of my brothers properties was thru an agent and advertised on RE.com. We felt they were not doing enough so advertised it on gum tree have got really good tenants but they said they had seen it on RE.com and tried to contact the agent a few times with no response. I passed there info onto the agent we accepted them and then took the property off the agent and now manage it as well even though its a couple of hours away. this is why some landlords also advertise on gumtree cos the agents are not doing there job properly.

cheers

 

[SamL]

A bit of an older thread but interesting reading. I have a property currently advertised through an agent for lease and is obviously up on all the RE websites, etc. Has been up for a couple of weeks now with a couple of open for inspections but have had only a couple of people even view the property and no applications. The market does seem slow in the area with the agent saying other similar properties aren't getting anyone through either.

I have now in the last few days put my own add up on gumtree and have had a few enquiries pretty quickly and am holding an open for inspection on a Saturday (myself running it, not the agent) with a few people already saying they are coming along. We will see how many actually turn up.

I have also had someone ask the question of if it is Agency managed or owner managed. Which makes me think they wouldn't pass the agency checks.

My thinking now is that if any of these people turn out okay is to get the agency to run them through the system and then just self manage. I understand I would still pay first weeks rent and advertising fee for this. But I feel a bit like I am going around the agent as I have already signed up with them, is this wrong or alright to do?

What are the pitfalls of self managing? I am happy to do basic maintenance myself, etc. Higher LL insurance costs? I suppose the biggest headache is if someone stopped paying rent, but it doesn't seem to be that hard to send a few letters off to meet the required regulations.

 

[wylie]

I have also had someone ask the question of if it is Agency managed or owner managed. Which makes me think they wouldn't pass the agency checks.

It is good you are aware this question could mean they won't pass checks. It could also mean they don't like dealing with agents. One of our best tenants came off Gumtree, and just was sick of dealing with agents.

My thinking now is that if any of these people turn out okay is to get the agency to run them through the system and then just self manage. I understand I would still pay first weeks rent and advertising fee for this. But I feel a bit like I am going around the agent as I have already signed up with them, is this wrong or alright to do?

We tried for years to find an agent who would do a "let only" in exchange for one week's rent. Mostly they weren't interested. I'd ask up front if they will do this for you. If not, and you want the checks done, go with the agency and you can always take over the management once you are comfortable they are good tenants.

What are the pitfalls of self managing? I am happy to do basic maintenance myself, etc. Higher LL insurance costs? I suppose the biggest headache is if someone stopped paying rent, but it doesn't seem to be that hard to send a few letters off to meet the required regulations.

We've always self-managed. I know most of the rules and anything that comes up that I need clarification on, I find out. You won't pay higher landlord insurance costs as far as I know. I'm sure we don't pay any more because we self-manage.

The biggest thing is to know the rules, know how to deal with issues if they arise and to keep onto problems as they arise. I've always felt we look after our houses and find tenants quicker than agents because I am concentrating on one house and not trying to manage 60 of them.

Others would hate it, but I find it a cakewalk.

 

[SamL]

Thanks for the response Wylie. I think I am going to stick through the agent at this stage just for a bit of piece of mind I suppose, I also have other things I am trying to dedicate my time to at the moment. My house mate actually used to work in the Victorian government department that deals with all of the rental stuff, so has a good knowledge on it all and is self managing her own property so it doesn't worry me too much.

Did have people come through on the weekend, all of whom were keen and took application forms but as of yet none of them have actually submitted them, so don't know if they were not interested when they saw what was needed through the agency forms or were just saying different to my face. Ah well, another open tomorrow and we will see how we go.

 

[DaveM]

I have also had someone ask the question of if it is Agency managed or owner managed. Which makes me think they wouldn't pass the agency checks.

My thinking now is that if any of these people turn out okay is to get the agency to run them through the system and then just self manage. I understand I would still pay first weeks rent and advertising fee for this. But I feel a bit like I am going around the agent as I have already signed up with them, is this wrong or alright to do?

You can buy casual access TICA searches in blocks of 10, so might be worth that if you have a number of self manages, probably cheaper than a weeks rent from agent.

 

[Made_Man]

our PM told us to stay away from gumtree as all the people that look on that side are all duds. i still placed the advert online as i wanted to find my own tenant and save the 1 week finders fee. i had heaps of people enquirer. i managed to find this lady that was looking to move to a place closer to her work so i passed them over to the PM to do all the checks. the PM called me within 20min of me sending her the email and said she was excellent and to get her to sign straight away.
still to this day i make a point that she came from gumtree.

 

[wylie]

One of our current enants came off Gumtree. We've had good results there before, and obviously we'd had replies that we have not pursued. This lady was sick of dealing with PMs. She was happy that we ran checks on her via an agent. In fact, I found her because the agent was not having much luck. When you open a house mid-week for ten minutes, how many people are going to turn up?

I could have taken her on and saved myself a week's rent, but I wouldn't do that. I passed her to the agent who did the checks and signed her up.

Not everyone looking on Gumtree is dodgy .

 

[Peterw]

One of the reasons that agents are reluctant to do "let only's" in that the Professional Indemnity Insurer has spooked every one by saying that a LL can come back to you if there is a problem, and you have a liability that you are not getting paid for, as you are not the manager. Now I am of the view that these comments may be very self serving and not factual, however I do know that a of agents have stopped once this was mentioned to them.

The reason we don't, is that you can appreciate, that we will be far more aggressive wanting to get tenants for the properties that we manage. So having 2 levels of service did not seem the right thing to do, so we chose to not go down that path and have the conflict.

I do respect people who do self manage, and know for a lot, things go well. I have also met some who have gone down that path, and when things have gone pear shaped, they have lost more than what they would have paid in tax deductible PM fees, and also had the time to do other things. Sorry that did sound like a plug.

 

[Deltaberry]

One of my brothers properties was thru an agent and advertised on RE.com. We felt they were not doing enough so advertised it on gum tree have got really good tenants but they said they had seen it on RE.com and tried to contact the agent a few times with no response. I passed there info onto the agent we accepted them and then took the property off the agent and now manage it as well even though its a couple of hours away. this is why some landlords also advertise on gumtree cos the agents are not doing there job properly.

cheers

We all know leasing agents are just doing a job. Most don't care if your property is leased or not.

The most important thing about a real estate agent is his ability to give you proprietary deals before it comes onto the market. An agent who can only tell you there's an upcoming auction but can't help you get the property before it goes public is as good as waste of oxygen.