Really? And you know this because of your vast holdings of properties in 'inferior' areas?
And again, you know this because of your vast experience & substantial holdings of properties? Or because you're a PM and have to mop up the mess from the other PM's?
Or are you only guessing?
Hi All,
Thank you for your reply, suggestions and kind messages.
Bavard - I'm sorry that you also have an issue with this company. Hope it could be resolved soon.
Re. DFT, this was actually the first time I needed to contact them myself, so I'm grateful for all the information on the matter. Based on what DFT told me earlier today, they would escalate the issue to their compliant department and this may lead to investigations, fine, warnings or cancellation of license. What they also advised me was to apply to NCAT, and get an order to enforce landlord (our) to instruction to them re. eviction, insurance claim and also to get a copy of the client file. At the moment, the company is uncooperative (or more unresponsive really) with providing client file info to be used in insurance claim.
Some of you wonder why we invested in the 'rougher' area in the first place. This was done with eyes open, as we're looking for higher yield to help with holding cost for our more expensive properties in Inner Sydney. We hold several properties in ex-housing areas in Tamworth, Taree, Orange, Albury and Armidale. Our experience have been that they have more issues in general compared to IPs in better areas, but Skater nailed it in the head when highlighting the importance of a good PM. With this Orange property (Incident 4 in original post) for example, the same tenant had resided in the place since 2010. The previous local PM did a good job and arrears was never more than 3-4 weeks, still very much under what insurance will cover in the case things go south. After management was moved to them, we now have an arrears of 40+ weeks, which I believe reflects the skills of the PMs.
Having said that, we are actually considering selling this place after the issues resolved. Reason being we have problem finding a good PM in the area. Not many PMs are willing to manage IP in the area. We had changed PM once prior to the last local PM. Local PM was good but not doing the area anymore. And we had a bad experience with another property in Orange being burned by tenant a while back (luckily covered by insurance - see another thread to know more about this). I have a feeling that 'rougher' area of Orange maybe a bit too rough for our taste.
Before we throw in the towel though - anyone know a good PM in Orange who manages IP in the 'rougher' area, please let me know
Thank you for your reply, suggestions and kind messages.
Bavard - I'm sorry that you also have an issue with this company. Hope it could be resolved soon.
Re. DFT, this was actually the first time I needed to contact them myself, so I'm grateful for all the information on the matter. Based on what DFT told me earlier today, they would escalate the issue to their compliant department and this may lead to investigations, fine, warnings or cancellation of license. What they also advised me was to apply to NCAT, and get an order to enforce landlord (our) to instruction to them re. eviction, insurance claim and also to get a copy of the client file. At the moment, the company is uncooperative (or more unresponsive really) with providing client file info to be used in insurance claim.
Some of you wonder why we invested in the 'rougher' area in the first place. This was done with eyes open, as we're looking for higher yield to help with holding cost for our more expensive properties in Inner Sydney. We hold several properties in ex-housing areas in Tamworth, Taree, Orange, Albury and Armidale. Our experience have been that they have more issues in general compared to IPs in better areas, but Skater nailed it in the head when highlighting the importance of a good PM. With this Orange property (Incident 4 in original post) for example, the same tenant had resided in the place since 2010. The previous local PM did a good job and arrears was never more than 3-4 weeks, still very much under what insurance will cover in the case things go south. After management was moved to them, we now have an arrears of 40+ weeks, which I believe reflects the skills of the PMs.
Having said that, we are actually considering selling this place after the issues resolved. Reason being we have problem finding a good PM in the area. Not many PMs are willing to manage IP in the area. We had changed PM once prior to the last local PM. Local PM was good but not doing the area anymore. And we had a bad experience with another property in Orange being burned by tenant a while back (luckily covered by insurance - see another thread to know more about this). I have a feeling that 'rougher' area of Orange maybe a bit too rough for our taste.
Before we throw in the towel though - anyone know a good PM in Orange who manages IP in the 'rougher' area, please let me know
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Bully for you!
Well, since you don't know what I hold in my portfolio you are again talking out of turn.
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If you want to get hold of Nathan you can always try facebook, there is regular posting activity from all parts of his business, this is also probably where they spend most of their time. You can get vocal about your complaints but be-aware that he has built up a vast cult like following of delirious pilgrims that are ready to pounce on anyone that tries to bring Down or defame their property messiah
Some of you wonder why we invested in the 'rougher' area in the first place. This was done with eyes open, as we're looking for higher yield to help with holding cost for our more expensive properties in Inner Sydney. We hold several properties in ex-housing areas in Tamworth, Taree, Orange, Albury and Armidale. Our experience have been that they have more issues in general compared to IPs in better areas, but Skater nailed it in the head when highlighting the importance of a good PM. With this Orange property (Incident 4 in original post), the same tenant had resided in the place since 2010. The previous local PM did a good job and arrears was never more than 3-4 weeks, still very much under what insurance will cover in the case things go south. After management was moved to them, we now have an arrears of 40+ weeks, which I believe reflects the skills of the PMs.
I have a feeling that 'rougher' area of Orange maybe a bit too rough for our taste.
Before we throw in the towel though - anyone know a good PM in Orange who manages IP in the 'rougher' area, please let me know
It seems like you've had a very rough ride with this. While I cannot comment on the skills (or lack of) of this company, as I don't have any with them, I have heard that it is hard to find a good PM in Orange. Not sure if that is just rumour or if there is any truth in it though.
Like you, we have quite a bit of ex-housing stock, but have had no real issues with any of it, other than on the occasions when we had a poor PM. With a good PM, the occasional mishap is easy to manage.
In saying this though, early on in our career, we had to sell one due to the unruly neighbours who continually vandalised the place. The police knew them well, but as they were under 18yrs, there wasn't anything they could do.
There was another PM in St Mary's that embezzled a heap of money. Sent some LL's to the wall. I got done for around $25k, but couldn't get any money out of him because he declared Bankruptcy. The worst part was, that even months after moving everything from him to another agency, you'd still find more bits missing - like Bond's not lodged (and pocketed).
Stay strong! You'll get through this.
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James - thanks for the suggestions. I already tried Facebook (before unfriend-ing him ), email, his personal mobile and leaving a message with his reception. I believe he was not contactable by choice.
It was actually very ironic at one time. the company was sending me all these invites to their Facebook Property Management Q&A where they advertise all the services they offer clients, while at the same time did not reply to any email and phone enquiries that I sent as their paying client.
And thanks for the warning. I'm certainly not looking at a personal vendetta with Nathan. He was a friend and I wish him well. I'm sharing my experience, first to seek advice on what to do from the brain-bank of SS and second to share the learnings I gained from the matter. It's an unpleasant and expensive experience for us, but I believe it can and will be resolved. This too shall pass.
), email, his personal mobile and leaving a message with his reception. I believe he was not contactable by choice.It was actually very ironic at one time. the company was sending me all these invites to their Facebook Property Management Q&A where they advertise all the services they offer clients, while at the same time did not reply to any email and phone enquiries that I sent as their paying client.
And thanks for the warning. I'm certainly not looking at a personal vendetta with Nathan. He was a friend and I wish him well. I'm sharing my experience, first to seek advice on what to do from the brain-bank of SS and second to share the learnings I gained from the matter. It's an unpleasant and expensive experience for us, but I believe it can and will be resolved. This too shall pass.
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Ouch. I'm sorry to hear about your experience, Skater.
Thank you for your kind words. I know this too shall pass and will be chalked as one of the more interesting experiences looking back. I just wished that the process was a bit less rough, especially on the personal side.
I have 2 ex DOH IPs in Orange. I used Ray White. Negotiation seems to be their plan of attack rather than hard enforcement and while it can be frustrating that they don't take a tough line sometimes, I can see that it tends to work there. I have tenants who were in arrears by a bit and months after they've left the property they are still routine with their payment plan.
Vacancy rates are pretty high there at the moment and its a rough reality that its better to have a tenant in arrears than a vacant prooerty that ends up being land value.
Vacancy rates are pretty high there at the moment and its a rough reality that its better to have a tenant in arrears than a vacant prooerty that ends up being land value.
It's not defamation if it's true and can be backed up by evidence though, is it?
My previous post I merely point out an option and that's my personal view, that's all.
Had two properties managed by them. Constant PM changeover in st Mary's, my two were next suburbs, well tenanted. One prop went into arrears and the tenant played the game with the changeover of PMs. Constant nagging got them to tribunal, when the arrears agreement was breached it took two weeks for the to review the file.
Have moved agents and would never ever recommend this company to anyone.
Have moved agents and would never ever recommend this company to anyone.
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beachgurl - thanks for the information re. agent. I'm a bit worry about the vacancy rate too, as we had had place broken in in Orange during vacancy before, place vandalised and things stolen. this sounds bad, but we kind of relieve that we're holding the other IP in Orange as land now after the previous fire - only need mowing once in a while. We still believe that Orange has huge potentials for the future, so we're definitely holding the land for long term (it's a good 2000sqm+ size). it's the short term tenant issues that are wearing us out.
baby blue eyes - I'm sorry to hear about the problems you have with them. their PMs irresponsiveness (esp. the licensee in charge) is indeed shocking to me! some of the more junior staff were friendly and I believed trying to be helpful, but unfortunately couldn't help much with issues. I've had other cases where PM avoiding phone calls when they haven't had answers for me yet, but usually they'd reply to emails with update or just to say that they're still waiting for information. this one was just silent like a black hole. I'm not sure how they think they could get away with treating paying customer that way, it's just beyond comprehension.
TMNT - The company has several branches, and we're only ever dealing with 2 of them (St Mary's and Central Coast). I'm not sure how they define their coverage, but St Mary's managed properties in Guildford and Orange for us, while Central Coast managed our IPs in Taree and Tamworth. I believed St Mary's manages Sydney metro, as Nathan previously offered us management for Inner Sydney up to Campbeltown from St Mary's office.
main issues I saw with their business model were the remote-management, lack of good trade networks locally in the areas where they manage IPs and inexperienced (and maybe laziness) of some staff. I had experienced tradies sent from out-of-town, charging premium and petrol - even for simple work, times when I gave their PM some local contacts I got from old files (which they should have too from old PM) or google - to get new quote from as they said they couldn't get local tradies, times when my accountant was contacted by council's collection service because of unpaid rates and ended up paying filing, service and legal fees, etc. there was even one occasion where the company was trying to get our old PM (which they just replaced) to source new tenants for the property and do open houses for them as they're not local and maybe couldn't be bothered doing open houses - which of course upset the old PM so much! thinking back, there were several bad signs earlier in the contract, but we stayed so long as thinking that these were teething issues and took comfort on the fact that we knew Nathan personally and would be able to call on him when things got seriously wrong. sadly, that wasn't the case.
baby blue eyes - I'm sorry to hear about the problems you have with them. their PMs irresponsiveness (esp. the licensee in charge) is indeed shocking to me! some of the more junior staff were friendly and I believed trying to be helpful, but unfortunately couldn't help much with issues. I've had other cases where PM avoiding phone calls when they haven't had answers for me yet, but usually they'd reply to emails with update or just to say that they're still waiting for information. this one was just silent like a black hole. I'm not sure how they think they could get away with treating paying customer that way, it's just beyond comprehension.
TMNT - The company has several branches, and we're only ever dealing with 2 of them (St Mary's and Central Coast). I'm not sure how they define their coverage, but St Mary's managed properties in Guildford and Orange for us, while Central Coast managed our IPs in Taree and Tamworth. I believed St Mary's manages Sydney metro, as Nathan previously offered us management for Inner Sydney up to Campbeltown from St Mary's office.
main issues I saw with their business model were the remote-management, lack of good trade networks locally in the areas where they manage IPs and inexperienced (and maybe laziness) of some staff. I had experienced tradies sent from out-of-town, charging premium and petrol - even for simple work, times when I gave their PM some local contacts I got from old files (which they should have too from old PM) or google - to get new quote from as they said they couldn't get local tradies, times when my accountant was contacted by council's collection service because of unpaid rates and ended up paying filing, service and legal fees, etc. there was even one occasion where the company was trying to get our old PM (which they just replaced) to source new tenants for the property and do open houses for them as they're not local and maybe couldn't be bothered doing open houses - which of course upset the old PM so much! thinking back, there were several bad signs earlier in the contract, but we stayed so long as thinking that these were teething issues and took comfort on the fact that we knew Nathan personally and would be able to call on him when things got seriously wrong. sadly, that wasn't the case.
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TNMT
And also down the south coast. They do not manage the ones in Sydney properly. As they say you find out how good property managers are when they are dealing with tardy tenants. I should have moved earlier than I did. There is no way they can efficiently handle the distances, there is also quite a bit of staff turnover, more than any of my other PM agencies. Annoying that they are advising on tenants in one of the property magazines, when they do not follow the procedures they advise in the magazine.
And also down the south coast. They do not manage the ones in Sydney properly. As they say you find out how good property managers are when they are dealing with tardy tenants. I should have moved earlier than I did. There is no way they can efficiently handle the distances, there is also quite a bit of staff turnover, more than any of my other PM agencies. Annoying that they are advising on tenants in one of the property magazines, when they do not follow the procedures they advise in the magazine.
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