Very bad experience with a property managers

Thank you.
We fired them last year.
Police said there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute...

We have a great, new super now.
So, it did have a silver lining :)

That's good to hear that you have a new great super now. Seen in perspective, I believe we've gone off not too badly either. We do experience sizeable losses, but previously we're talking of doing projects together with him and such! Things could had easily be much much worse!


cu@thetop said:
Apologies- I'm not sure DaveM is a lawyer and he may be offended if you called him that. I meant to say I feel he has Nathan's personality pegged.

:)

Would love to hear his assessment - if just for the fun of it.

We for one were pretty baffled by his change in attitude. Just seemed very out-of-character. But the longer it went and the more issues came up, I believe we probably had read him completely wrong in the first place.


Terry_w said:
Obtaining a financial advantage by deception, crimes act

Not to mention other acts...

Thanks Terry, for the clarification.
 
Apologies- I'm not sure DaveM is a lawyer and he may be offended if you called him that. I meant to say I feel he has Nathan's personality pegged.

DaveM isnt a lawyer - wanted to be but never quite eventuated. He is an IT guy/KFC Buyers Agent :)
 
The impression I get is that various businesses/websites get launched, start well then get left at the wayside as the next business idea gets underway. Meanwhile the existing businesses have no focus and limp along with staff left to their own devices doing things in their own fashion.

I suspect that the business group as a whole is probably in need of a general/business manager to oversee day to day operations, leaving the ideas people to come up with new ways to generate cash.

Not all ideas people are great business leaders, and not all business leaders are great ideas people.

With PM and BA and MAPS and accounting and finance broking and interviews and marketing and a myriad of other things going on simultaneously, there just isnt time to run a multi state PM business amongst all the other noise and distractions.

Well said DaveM and this certainly applies to other businesses. Branching out too quickly and having one's fingers in too many pies can spell the death of not only a company/organisation but it's reputation as well. What's the saying? "Do one thing and do it well to succeed" It may not be as exciting for some, but it certainly can make a difference in the level of service and expertise delivered to the consumer at the end of the day.
 
Oh, I got what cu@thetop was saying now (hehe...bit slow :eek:)

I completely agree with DaveM and Jacque's assessment on the matter.

DaveM - KFC Buyer Agent, that's quite something! :D
 
Nathan is/has been more successful than me, and willing to stick his neck out more, so who am I to criticize. However I came across a rental listing of theirs in Brisbane a few days ago and not following Nathan too closely looked at his website to see how many and where his PM's are located. One at St Marys!

I was offered a position in property management (as a maintenance coordinator) for an outsourced PM company last year. For properties they managed for REA's outside of Sydney they used local PM's to do inspections which is what Nathan probably does. That means relying on someone else who has no motivation to go out of there way or make their life difficult to look after your landlords interests as they may only get a small amount of business from you over the year.

It is hard enough getting a descent PM when dealing with them direct for a local property, why would you use one from outside the area or interstate who has to sublet their services. You would have to have rocks in your head!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Reno completion (with piccies)

Beachside - thanks for sharing your experience re. outsourced PM. After this bad experience, I'm definitely sticking with local houses ;)


After some delays (mostly tradies availability and holidays), reno is now completed, and the place looks much nicer! :) The most wonderful part about the reno was that I found a good handyman who's tech savvy. So after a couple of phone calls, all discussions were via iMessage. I sent him screen shots of Bunnings website for items I wanted to be installed, he quoted, purchased and install them. All worked so smoothly. He's also so helpful and at one time even drove back from other town (where he did other job) at night to fix a broken floorboard found by the carpet guy, just so that there's no delay with carpet laying. I wish all the other tradies were like him!

We also managed to save a lot on the repair as I was able to negotiate prices with carpet and blind companies, also with the tradies. A very nice surprise was that insurer ended up paying us the full amount for carpet and painting at the end, not minus depreciation! I'm not sure if this was because the carpet and walls were considered totalled, as many many stains on the carpet and holes on almost all internal walls. So despite the agros, things worked well and our losses with this particular property is not as bad as previously thought :D

I attached several before & after photos to illustrate changes in the properties.
 

Attachments

  • front before.jpg
    front before.jpg
    187.7 KB · Views: 184
  • kitchen before1.jpg
    kitchen before1.jpg
    731.8 KB · Views: 175
  • stove damage.jpg
    stove damage.jpg
    238.1 KB · Views: 166
  • door damage.jpg
    door damage.jpg
    251.7 KB · Views: 164
  • before1.jpg
    before1.jpg
    345.1 KB · Views: 166
After piccies

attached are after piccies
 

Attachments

  • bathroom.jpg
    bathroom.jpg
    262 KB · Views: 156
  • kitchen after.jpg
    kitchen after.jpg
    321.4 KB · Views: 160
  • living.jpg
    living.jpg
    471.7 KB · Views: 165
  • room.jpg
    room.jpg
    384.7 KB · Views: 146
Congrats glad to see you are almost there and close to being able to re-tenant,

I had a 6 month vacancy last year due to PM incompetency (managed by a different SS members agency as well) and they were only 10 mins drive away!
 
Congrats glad to see you are almost there and close to being able to re-tenant,

I had a 6 month vacancy last year due to PM incompetency (managed by a different SS members agency as well) and they were only 10 mins drive away!

Which one was that, Dave? I don't know of a SS member who has an agency 10mins from here.
 
Congrats glad to see you are almost there and close to being able to re-tenant,

I had a 6 month vacancy last year due to PM incompetency (managed by a different SS members agency as well) and they were only 10 mins drive away!


Thanks DaveM. Yes, we're almost there at last :)

Had a great chat with the Principal of local PM yesterday. We're talking about potential selling sometimes ago, but she suggested that we just hold on and rent it out now - unless we do have to sell. After reno, the place was appraised by bank for $155k and agent for $150-160k. OK growth as we purchased it at $98k on mid 2010, but not exactly stellar. Estimated rent is $220pw, so it's positive. I think we'd hold it for now.

I'm so sorry to hear about the vacancy last year. It is very hard when PM is incompetent! Upto this incident with this company, issues we had were mostly related to tenants - usually resolved mostly by PM and losses covered by insurer. As a landlord, I found tenant issues require less of my time and agro, compared to issue of incompetent PM.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Update on NCAT results

I attended NCAT hearing against the company on Monday. This was to recover some of the losses caused by their incompetence, i.e. fine and legal fees caused by unpaid rates, losses caused by incorrect advertising. I was also seeking for reimbursement of all management fees ever paid to them in relation to the Orange property for gross negligence. This latest one was suggested by Dept of Fair Trading.

I attended by phone call and the hearing went very long (around 3 hr). Thank God for Rebtel, otherwise I'd have paid tons for an international phone call rather than below $10 :)

It was a very good hearing. We didn't get all the amount we asked for, but we received reimbursement for council fines and compensation for losses caused by incorrect advertising for Guildford property. The Tribunal also found that the company was grossly negligent in their management of property in Orange, hence awarded us reimbursement of 100% management fees ever paid to them for the Orange property :D

I actually surprised myself by getting a bit emotional when the last one was awarded. When DFT suggested this to me, I told them that I didn't care about the management fees already paid - it's not much and I just want to move forward with gaining possession back, repairs and getting the property to start earning again. I'm now glad that I took DFT's advise and had this included in the claim. It's kind of a nice closure for all the drama we've gone through the last year or so.

One thing I found from the hearing was that the company uses different entities for management of their offices. So their St Marys office is under different company than their Central Coast office, although all is owned and run by the same team, reporting to the licensee in charge of St Marys office. We had some claims against them in relation to their past management of Taree property, and it couldn't proceed in last Monday's hearing because of this difference in entity. The Tribunal suggested that we pursue them via separate claim - should we wish to, which I will lodge very soon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Kudos to you Krista for the way you've conducted yourself in this thread. You've been very informative and level headed in sharing your experiences. Thank you.
 
Many thanks for the kind words, Jkat and Kinnon Bell :)

I do hope that by sharing my experiences, I could spare some people the same agro that we went through.
 
That's great news kristje, glad I left them before tenants got out of hand.

Nathan needs to step up and focus on this business, I would never recommend the agency to anyone
 
Baby Blue Eyes, thanks for your kind words.

Good call for leaving them early. I wish I had the same foresight and saved myself the agros. But hey, someone said that what didn't kill you makes you stronger :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's running again! :)

Hi All,

Thought I'd provide an update, a tenancy contract was signed on the property yesterday for immediate occupation. So ka-ching! the place is earning again :)

It's rented to someone known to the local PM with good records, so fingers crossed it'd be drama-free from here.

Thanks so much for all the support and suggestions during the challenging time. I was pretty lost on what to do when I started this thread, it's good to have all the dramas behind me now :) Thank you!
 
Back
Top