No not from a Landlords Perspective...from an Agents
The answer to the fee problem
The answer to the fee problem
A number of players in every marketplace seem to use discounting as a main point of difference, forcing down management fees, creating a discounting culture and forcing pressure on other agencies to bring down their management fees as well.
If discounting is reducing revenue and margins, and other expenses like salaries, marketing, insurance and other overheads keep rising, a crisis will, (and has) resulted!
And it is simply unsustainable!
One of the key issues I see is the mindset that most of our revenue reliance needs to be on the management fee being the main ?breadwinner?, with not much emphasis on other fees.
The statement of ?but what?s the management fee for?? is common place in the industry, particularly on the east coast in Victoria and Queensland and to a lesser extent in NSW. However, South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia seem to all enjoy having several ancillary fees over and above what is charged as a typical fee structure on the east coast.
Therefore, I feel that if we are to become and remain profitable, emphasis must be placed on adding extra ancillary fees, because continuing to hold onto the management fees as a majority breadwinner with not much else, will eventually put you out of business!
You might say, "But adding extra fees, won?t our clients choose to go elsewhere?"
My answer is always the same and that is, you need to understand the ?Law of the Main Game? in that landlords, a majority of the time, place emphasis on mainly the management fee and to a lesser extent the letting fee, but place little to no real focus or emphasis on anything else.
Therefore if you are generally keeping your management fee and letting fee at the market rate, then adding other extra fees can be done quite easily
Cont.....