The property manager you choose will absolutely impact the performance of your investment. The question is, will they help you make and save money, or will they end up costing you money?
Most of us will take time comparing the attributes and costs of anything we are about to purchase to help us make the right decision. We do this even when it’s a matter of dollars and cents, like on our daily coffee. It’s not just the price that matters, in fact when it comes to coffee that’s not nearly as important as the type of coffee, the barista, the milk options, where it’s located… the list goes on.
So why is it that when investors are on the hunt for a property manager to look after their property (which is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars), they don’t always put in the same amount of time and thought? The first and sometimes only question we get asked is - how much do you charge? Yep, price matters, but just like coffee it’s not the most important consideration.
Every investor wants a property manager that will help them make or save money.
So, what should you consider before you choose?
12 questions you need to ask a perspective property manager.
With answers to the right questions and our benchmark to compare to, you’ll have everything you need to make a smart investment decision.
1.
How do you set the rental price for my property?
The Collective Way:
We evaluate five industry datasets to develop our comparative market analysis which guides our rental price recommendations. Data insights combined with our experience and market knowledge means we’ll be able to get you the highest possible rent the market can tolerate.
2.
Will you sort out everything that’s needed to get my property ready for tenancy? Or do I need to do that?
The Collective Way:
We can sort it all out for you, from gardening and maintenance through to insurance and bill redirections. We can do it all, or you can pick and choose what we do and how much you want to sort out yourself. We want to make your life as easy as possible and help you make (or save) money while we’re at it.
3.
How do you find a tenant?
The Collective Way:
We’re able to find a tenant in the quickest possible time, who’ll pay the maximum amount of rent, without compromising quality. We do this by applying our nine-step leasing strategy where you’ll be kept updated every step of the way.
4.
How do you make sure the tenant is going to look after my property and pay rent on time?
The Collective Way:
Our thorough vetting process, tenant onboarding and maintenance process training is how we make sure your tenant does all the right things. In fact, we’re so confident our approach works, that we’ll put our money where our mouth is and cover missed rent if they don’t work out. That’s just one of the service guarantees you get when you work with us.
5.
How much will your services cost me? All of them.
The Collective Way:
Property management fees across the market range from a low 6.6% - to a high of 11%. Our fees sit at about the middle of this range. In addition, we charge a leasing fee and you’ll need to cover the costs for things like marketing, the Inventory and Condition Report (ICR) and a reletting fee (when you get to that). All of which you’ll find are standard additional costs across most agencies.
With us though, you’ll never pay for us to:
- manage all of your bills
- do admin work
- connect you to or manage any related services
- perform portfolio health checks
- provide property value price updates
All of the above, plus more, is included in our management fee.
6.
When will you contact me during the tenancy?
The Collective Way:
We’ll be in contact frequently when you’ve just signed on with us, following our 9-step leasing strategy to get you a tenant as soon as possible. Contact will slow down once we have a tenant in, you’ll hear from us less on anything related to your tenant. We’ll get in touch when we need you to make decisions on maintenance, or anything else that comes up. But generally no news is good news once your tenant is in and happy.
We’ll keep in touch with you to provide a health check on your investment property/s, as well as send you our monthly Inside Property Investment newsletter which covers market updates, easy to understand legislation updates and must do’s for any investor. We’ll also be sure to send you opportunities to attend our industry events and get involved in any of our community activities.
7.
Will my property manager be available to take my calls. Will they get back to me?
The Collective Way:
We know that one of the biggest complaints landlords have with their property manager is not being able to get in contact with them. In the typical model, Property Managers are out and about a lot of their day, performing inspections, doing vacates and showing property to prospective tenants. Property Mangers in our industry tend to need to be a jack of all trades, unfortunately that can make them master of none.
We have designed our roles and built our team around a central point of contact for you, the relationship manager. This means you have the one person who is always accessible to you, as well as having the most proficient and expert team members performing the other various parts of managing your property. We even guarantee we’ll get back to you within a certain timeframe. If we don’t, you won’t get charged our management fee for a week. Another one of our unique service guarantees you get when you work with us.
8.
How do you help me increase my return?
The Collective Way:
Everything we do, we do it with this in mind. We know it’s not good enough to have someone managing your investment property who just ticks boxes and passes on messages, you deserve better than that, and we are better than that.
We cover it all from making sure your asset is protected with our proactive maintenance approach, securing discounted rates for landlord insurance, depreciation reports and legislative requirements like smoke alarm testing to annual check-ups and reporting on the performance of your property. We also underpin our rental reviews with thorough analysis, not just CPI. And we comprehensively onboard your tenant so they are in the best position to look after your property day in and day out.
9.
Do you manage everything to do with my investment property? What do I need to do?
The Collective Way:
The short answer is yes. After you sign with us and complete the paperwork, we take care of everything else. The only thing you need to do is get back to us as soon as you can on decisions that you only you can make, usually around maintenance and costs. You can opt in or out of anything we manage at any time, flexibility and control is in your hands.
10.
Can you help me expand my portfolio? How?
The Collective Way:
Absolutely! We’ll keep you up to date with the value and performance of your investment property. We’ll connect you with finance specialists who’ll be able to tell you what you can do and how to do it. Plus we’ll match you with investment properties that will work for you and get you closer to financial freedom.
11.
What happens if I’m not happy with your service?
The Collective Way:
We created our service guarantees because we are pretty damn confident we won’t let you down. We really do aim to please, but don’t just take our word for it, we’re the only agency in Canberra with 300+ reviews with a 5 star rating - read what our clients say about us yourself.
But, if we do, please let us know. We started this business to ‘Go far, together’ and if we’re not fulfilling our promise, we want to know about it. We’ll do whatever we can to turn it around.
12.
Why should I choose you over The Property Collective?
Let us know if you find an agency that can do it better than us for the same or less money. We’d want to work with them too!
