Review - ProRentals vs Rental Express

As I have read on this forum you are better to list your property with a specialist management agency and not a Real Estate. As the two biggest independent management companies in Brisbane are ProRental's and Rental Express, I just thought I would write a review based on the interviews only I had with both companies, and point out some good and bad points for each from my observations only.

Note I spoke with the Operations Manager of Rental Express (who doesn't usually deal face to face with clients) as a few of his staff were on holidays. In saying that he was very informative and he certainly knew his stuff, also owning rental property himself. The fact that he had to fill in as some of his staff were away during the busiest 2 weeks of the year for rental properties, shows a small lack of discipline within. But to his credit HE filled in, and after I questioned him, he said he had just had a meeting in which the company decided that no or little staff can take holidays during Jan anymore, the busiest month. That would also explain why it took them 1 and half days for them to ring me back after my first inquiry. ProRentals only took 3 hours.

ProRentals seemed to be a little bit more organized and professional selling their business to me. But it may have just been the way that the information was presented. There were some small thing's that made Pro Rentals stand out a little bit above Rental Express. One small thing they had was a piece of paper they give to the tenant listing the dates when rent has to be paid, the amount, and a column with a space to write their B-pay receipt number. It was just a small thing that impressed me. Anything that makes it easier for a tenant to pay rent on time has to be good. Rental Express may do this as well, but it wasn't mentioned to me.
The Rental Express guy also told me that they have found that some repair men are starting to charge a travel fee to pick up keys of agents to fix problems (I think he only mentioned this because my property is in Morningside, ProRentals office is in Toowong, can be up to a 45min drive in peak hour.) When I asked ProRentals about this, I was told that none of their repair men charge a travel fee, as so much business is created for them from Pro Rentals. Which shows they have good business relationships with repair men, who also charge below the standard rate.

More Info...

FEES- Pro Rentals:
Management Fee - 8% + GST
Letting Fee - 1 weeks rent + GST
Lease Renewal - Half a weeks Rent + GST
Monthly ostage and petties - $5 + GST

FEES - Rental Express
Management Fee - 9% + GST
Letting Fee - 1 weeks rent + GST
Lease Renewal - $77
Advertising Fee - $55

Just one last thing, Pro Rentals already have a clause filled out in there PAMD20a Appointment Of Agent form that states if I end up listing with another agent after signing with them, there is no fee or obligations for me to release them and list with another agent if the other agent finds a better tenant.

ProRentals had a the slight edge for me, but as I said before it way have just been the way the information was presented to me.

My best bet will be to give keys to both agents and go with the one who gets the best tenants with the highest rent in the shortest time. Easy done.

Anyone who has had good or bad experiences or can add to what I have said would be great.

Hope this has helped. I would recommend having an interview with both parties before making YOUR decision.
 
Pr Aok

Hi. I've been using ProRentals for years (4 IPs) and am very happy with them.

They just got new tenants into one of my units a couple of days ago... Up from $295/wk to $330/wk with ZERO vacancy gap.

One downside (for new clients at least) is that they have a policy not to give out PMs' personal mobile numbers. I wonder what other agencies are like in this regard.
 
I looked at Rental express a year back for my places in Greenslopes, I ended up going with Jeff Jones and have not had a single problem and have found them to be great, on one place they got a application on the first day at $340 a week for 2 bed unit which was excellent, this was a year ago and above expected. They only charge 7%.

My office is in the same building as prorental's in Toowong and one thing I have noticed is that all there PM's look very young and I'm only 24, they look straight out of high school. But they do look very organised.
 
My only experience with prorentals is as a potential tenant. looked at 3 places in 1 day and put in my application. That was on the 20th of December, 22nd I get a call back and told my application has been processed and everything is fine I will here back son, he also took my preferences.
The next day I called back in the afternoon, told that one place was no lnger for lease and he would get the property manager to call.

24th (Christmas Eve) still no call by lunch so I call, I'm advised that one of the properties has gone to someone else. But at 6;15pm I get a call from the proeprty manager to say that she is waiting to here back from the owner and that its a yes she just has to confirm, she will speak to me on the 29th.

29th she calls and wants to check i'm still interested....yes i am. These calls go on for a few days, told she is having trouble getting in contact with the owner and then he wants to think about things.

5th of January......told that i will definatley know today..... still nothing
5th of January...the same. I have to resign lease at current property or notice will be given to leave. I send an email to the manager who responds that she is sorry but the owner still can't decide ??????

Tells me to let her know if i'm interested in any other properties...

I'm just glad i can stay where i am.
 
ProRentals are usually very good and well organised like you said, however just because they give tenants the check-off sheet does not necessarily mean that tenants will always be as diligent themselves. Though credit where credits due, ProRentals are extremely good at chasing up tenants, which is more than I can ever say for Jeff Jones Real Estate who I will NEVER go with again.

I had 2 properties with Jeff Jones for a year only. The first property had a tenant for the whole 12 months, though the problem arose at the resigning of the 6 month lease. For the first 6 months on this property everything was kocher, then on the week after the tenants lease was up I never got paid. I assumed the tenant must have moved out and that they were finding another tenant. I called to confirm this, however my property manager was not there nor could I reach their mobile and no-one could answer my query (despite the fact all they would have had to do was look in their own brochure for an answer). I called a few times and finally got through two weeks later (I did not get paid on this fortnight either) and the PM told me that the tenants were in "the process of signing a new lease". Payments started as normal from the following week until I left Jeff Jones, however I never did see that month of rent

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't I gotten my money if they were there that month? The PM insisted after I made numerous calls and complaints that my money was deposited, however I maintain VERY strict records for taxation purposes and I know I never got the money. I'd like to know what that dodgy ***** did with an extra $1200, probably went and had a ditz's night out or something, she was a young idiot.

The other property went relatively smoothly, aside from a bit of damage to the property (tenants fault, the bond covered it). Though when Jeff Jones heard that I was moving agencies they took their own sweet time getting the repair guys out to fix the damage which was a massive inconvenience to both myself, Prorentals (who I went to) and to the new tenants who had to have some repairmen come in on their time as by the time Jeff Jones got around to it Prorentals already had me a new tenant for the property.
 
We're used Prorentals for about 18 months now and found them to be very good although there has been a turnover of 3 property managers during this time. The only thing that concerned me was their suggestion of a $5 pw increase in rent when the tenants were resigning for another 12 months, we asked and got a $25 increase. This was reasonable compared to other properties. That's ok though as they check with the owners before resigning the tenants. Overall we think Prorentals are worth the money, they regularly keep in contact with us and respond quickly to our requests.
 
Prorentals can be a pain for tenants

Hi there

This may work for hiring prorentals to manage your property but when they become to demanding for the tenants then good tenants will not stick around for the long hall. My experience with prorentals is a short one. I was in sydney when I looked at some properties over the web and found one property I liked to rent when I relocated to Brisbane for work. Prorentals was pressuring me to sign the lease from sydney a week before I had planned to actually sign. There was a lot of back and forth in terms that they will not give the property if I did not sign with the requested date but in the end they let me sign from the date I was to arrive Brisbane. We arrived at the units and guess what no curtains anywhere in the unit except the main room and it took us two months and I mean two months before we had any sort of privacy. The the lights in the lounge and dinning was not working, the TV did not work (we moved into a furnished unit) and there was no sofa to sit on. Amart delivered the sofa the following week and left in the box in the lounge. There has been on going issues ever since we moved in like the washing machine not working and it took 3 weeks to have someone out to look at that. Now we are two months away from our lease expiring and pro-rentals is wanting a decision from us whether we still stay or not ... RTA law says we have to give two wks minimum notice. At this rate, with the fact that tradespeople come in for repairs when we are not home and without our knowledge or they call us standing outside our door to say that they are here to repair ... we are constantly interuped so we may not be staying.
 
my friends were tenants at prorentals, was terrible (both my friends and PM)

house was filthy and complete mess. Pm took no action
they have requested numerous times to fix up dishwasher, PM also took no action

they also released a bond in full, despite a lot of expenses for cleaning and rubbish removal (although i'm not sure whether it was them or the agency who took over later when house got sold). they had to call my friends and ask them to pay back
 
Continuing problems with Rental Express

We are tenants and R/E has been our agent for the past year.

We currently have had no A/C for 2+ weeks, in spite of faxes, emails, calls and personal visits.

We have enlisted the help of RTA to get our A/C working.

Other problems in the past have included pigeon droppings, no water for yard, no landscaping, broken lights, unraveling carpet, and a broken toilet seat. All took R/E MONTHS to fix (and, in fact, after 11 months, we still have no water for the yard, as promised at sign in).

While we realise this is a forum for investors, as an owner, you may well wish to consider what R/E does to its tenants.

:mad::mad::mad:
 
NZ can I ask, are you in a unit or a house? If a unit, how many other units are in the complex?

The reason I ask is because despite being happy with my PM (ProRentals), sometimes you can be stuck with an incredibly slow, frustrating and unprofessional body-corporate manager (I've just finally got one of mine fired, yay!), that makes the PM's job a challenge to say the least.
 
Hello nzfilmprof,

We can only respond to requests from the tenants that are nominated on the lease or have been approved occupants. As we have no record of a tenant in the property with any details of nzfilmprof for privacy reasons, we had to confirm with the email address that we have on record and that you have corresponded to use with before that you are the actual tenant not someone else. You have confirmed that the other person mentioned in the email is associated with you.



As per my email reply to you:-

You faxed through to our office the maintenance request form on the 1st of December 2009. And the request was not marked as an urgent repair request by yourself. This is the first time that I can see that we have been advised in writing of the ac issue.

The air conditioning company was given the go ahead from the owner on the 3rd of December 2009 and the ac company was engaged to carry out the repair.

Unfortunately because of summer being the busiest time for ac companies the earliest that they could get there to fix the ac would be 15th December 2009.

From what I have looked through our records trades people have left messages on your phone a number of times to arrange access to the property to rectify your other maintenance requests. And after numerous attempts entry notices have been issued for the tradespeople to gain direct access. The toilet seat,carpet fraying, landscaping & water to your yard should have all been fixed.

With other items you mentioned on your posting, these items are things that body corporate control. Because certain things have to go through committees to get approved they can take a long time to rectify and unfortunately we do not have any control over how long these take to get fixed. This is also very frustrating to us as we have to take complaints from tenants, like yourselves, when body corporates are slow to act. Just like ianvestor had commented in his reply.

If you feel that we are not responding to your written requests, you can issue a Remedy Breach which are available from the RTA website. Just like we can issue you with a Remedy Breach if you breached the lease.

You have my email address, please feel free to email me back, if you feel that we have not addressed these maintenance issues.

Regards,
 
Rental Express: It's OK if our tenants go for weeks without AC in the Brisbane summer

Unfortunately because of summer being the busiest time for AC companies the earliest that they could get there to fix the AC would be 15th December 2009.

Since, Mr. Rose, you have chosen to make your emailed response to us public, we address your posting here as well.

We wrestled with how to respond to your private email to us earlier, but concluded that your email showed NO indication that you had ANY empathy with ANY of our concerns. Therefore, earlier, we saw no point in communicating further with you.

We feel that over two weeks to repair an AC is ENTIRELY unacceptable (and, for that matter, unbelievable). If one repair service is backed up, we suggest you find someone more responsive. We have a suggestion: wait until the worst of the Brisbane summer, then turn off your own AC for two + weeks. Perhaps you will then gain an appreciation for what your company put us through.


From what I have looked through our records tradespeople have left messages on your phone a number of times to arrange access to the property to rectify your other maintenance requests. And after numerous attempts entry notices have been issued for the tradespeople to gain direct access.

Numerous attempts? Please cite just ONE instance. Mr Rose, this is simple bullcrap. We have responded to EVERY call from you and your tradespeople, we have filled out every entry notice, etc etc etc.

The toilet seat, carpet fraying, landscaping & water to your yard should have all been fixed.

It took over six (6) weeks to replace the broken toilet seat. It took 6 months (!!) to do the landscaping (promised by you at signing). It took 11 months (!!!) to get a water tap (a 10 minute job). The carpet - frayed in numerous places – has NOT been fixed. We can cite numerous other instances where we have waited weeks (if not months) for repairs to be effected.

You don't include it here, but, in your email to us, you stated


I have also look at the signed lease, to see where it makes mention of certain things that were supposed to be rectified after you moved in. There is no mention in the lease, have you got any copies or documentation in relation to this?

Mr Rose, we were verbally promised by you at signing that the weed-filled lot would be landscaped. What we infer from your comment here is "if you don't have it in writing from Rental Express, you cannot depend on us to live up to our word."

With other items you mentioned on your posting, these items are things that Body Corporate control. Because certain things have to go through committees to get approved they can take a long time to rectify and unfortunately we do not have any control over how long these take to get fixed. This is also very frustrating to us

Mr Rose, we do NOT pay our rent to the Body Corporate, we pay it to Rental Express. Please do not attempt to make 'your' problems 'our' problems. It is up to Rental Express to work closely with the B.C. to effect the appropriate actions in an expeditious manner. If the B.C. will not act, R.E. should, particularly in response to OBVIOUS health hazards, such as piles of pigeon droppings outside our doorstep, pools of algae-filled water, overflowing rubbish bins that never get emptied, etc.
 
Interesting response NZFILMPROF, it will be good to sit back and watch this one unfold, you may want to get your hands on the *****Free DVD"How to increase the returns you get from your investment property"***** to see if any of the concerns you are having are mentioned.
Jezza
 
Please Note: that the person posting on this forum as NZFILMPROF is not an approved tenant of Rental Express and correspondence has been sent to the approved tenant in early January 2010 in relation to the comments made by NZFILMPROF. To this date, I personally have not had correspondence from the approved tenant and will be personally calling the approved tenant tomorrow to discuss this further.
 
Hi Jason. Without re-reading the post where the $1200 was mentioned, I was really just curious about why anyone would not be following up where that missing $1200 was.

It just happened to be brought up in this thread, but I was not implying it had anything to do with you, so sorry it it appeared that way.
 
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Crappy experience with prorentals

I am both a soon to be tenant and a property owner. I have rented in the past and submitted plenty of rental applications. Some have been rejected before (When I was a young male straight out of uni looking with 2 other young males... easily discriminated against... nevertheless we knew that and house hunted accordingly.) and others I have taken or withdrawn. In all my time I have never come across a more unpleasant application process than with Prorentals. It took them ages to process the application and we were constantly given the run around. I was treated worse now, when I am in a long term relationship and on a high wage than any of the applications I submitted as a young man with friends. I would never recommend this agency to others nor go near them for future tenancies or investment properties. I hope someone finds this useful.
 
I just switched over to Rental Express and so far their service has been great.

Their communication has been what I expect from a PM and they found me a tenant within a week over taking over the management where my last PM couldn't find a decent one within 7-8 weeks.

So far I am very happy with the way they do business.
 
Knows the feeling

I have been a tenant with Rental Express for a couple of years. I started as a tenant with them as I had no rental history was only 21 and a student so no other agency would even look at me. Rental express didn't need any references and only asked for a few payslips (now I am a property owner I worry about the lack of security). However, I always paid my rent on time and have never done any damage to any of the properties. Now that I have purchased a property and want to leave this one I have been messed around for weeks. I gave notice by phone to get the details, I spoke to the RTA and gave in my Notice of Intention to Leave. I was then explained the fees, which seemed high and I asked if anything else could happen. This is when I was told they would talk to the owners to see if an arrangement could be made. This was now 3 weeks ago. I have made numerous attempts to contact my pm who did not answer calls or respond to emails (she was on annual leave for a week, however even after she returned I had trouble getting contact). I contacted the RTA who said they legally needed to find a tenant asap. Once I got hold of my pm she told me "it was not in their best interests to find a new tenant as I had to continue to pay rent until they did". When I repeated this to her manager I was told I was a lier. I was also told I was lying about every other issue I had with their service. I then went even further and contacted Jason (I saw his comments on these sites). He has since taken sevral days to get back to me and has just quoted some legislation and ignored all the issues. I am now expected to pay my mortage and rent at the same time, while they follow their "best interests".

As other have said on this site, if an agency treats good tenants badly then its the owners that suffer long term. Not only will I not rent from them again or use them as an owner. I am also making sure everyone knows about my expirence!
 
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