Selling in a flat market?

[vmay]

In 6 weeks my current tenant is leaving my Broome property. It requires a lot of maintenance and is too much for me to manage.

I have wanted to sell for sometime. This is a good time for me to sell (personally) but the market is at the bottom. My concern is having a property empty for a long period in a remote location with no-one to look after it.

The property manager has been very difficult to deal with, so I am reluctant to leave it with that agency.

My questions are:

How do I make sure the property is looked after if its empty?

Do I do all maintenance and improvements or sell AS IS?

Do I wait another year to see if there is any change in the market?

Thanks for any input........V

 

[fernfurn]

Why not put a new tenant in for a short time. I would imagine there would be quite a call for something like that in Broome. It could lbe either no lease, which would require giving them 2 months notice, which is the time for a short settlement anyway. Or you could give them say, a 4 mths lease which gives you 2mths to sell with a 2 mths settlement. Or you could auction it with the lease timed to finish 2mths after the auction. If you dont like the existing pm, give it to the coy you want to go with for the sale and they can do the short leasing also.

 

[vmay]

Thanks for reply. Mostly people want long leases in Broome and there is a glut at the moment due to a lot of new building. Plus the agent takes the first 2 weeks rent which makes short leases not so appealing. I agree with having the same agent for selling and renting.

 

[Bats]

We are in Broome with 3 properties and the butt certainly has fallen out of the market(both sale and rentals). What where very attractive properties, are sitting on the sales market for a long time. I can't see it improving within the short term and you may have to tough it out and complete the maintenance issues.

We have struggled to find a reasonable PM for the past 2 years - prior to that we have a very good PM.

The situation with your current PM - are you still under a Management Authority - if so it may be better the devil you know sometimes. I would be pushing them now to start advertising.

There are a lot of properties for rent ATM and I suggest you offer "first week free", chuck in lawn mowing, short tem leases (if you do that negotiate a lesser letting fee) and the like.

Good luck