Does this sound familiar?
You’re tired of spending money having someone managing your investment property just to find that maintenance hasn’t been done properly. Maybe your property is empty and you don’t know if or when open inspections have happened and what was the outcome.
You probably changed Property Managers in Adelaide a few times already in the past. Maybe you have been Googling and found some websites, but they all seem to be the same and claim to be experts in management, with the best communication, low fees, the best team and the best systems. They all promise the same, but you know that very few can deliver.
Maybe you are a first-time landlord, lost in a sea of beautiful flashy websites, amazing reviews but with very little tangible information to make a sound decision.
Maybe you had bad incidents with unexperienced managers and you are sceptical that good Adelaide Property Management even exists. What really confuses you is how it seems impossible to evaluate a service before deciding to make yet another change in management.
I want you to understand one thing right now:
None of This Is Your Fault!
It is impossible to have a fair idea of the quality of the services of any management agency by checking their website alone.
You just don’t know how responsive they will be in managing your property. All of them have amazing customer testimonials, promises of effective communication and prompt service. Even if you speak to a prospect agency personally, they are in selling mode. They will tell you how brilliant they are.
You can ask some questions to have a better idea of how they structure their business, who is your main point of contact, their experience, but it is still very difficult to make a decision with one-sided information.
We understand why and where other property managers may let you down.
1. Maintenance: most property managers will inform you that there is some maintenance needed in the property. You get the email requesting your approval and you ask them to use their trades people to attend to the job.
Here is the first pain point: The manager must decide who they will send to complete the job. Do they send a plumber or a handyman? The consequences of that decision can be costly to you. Do they make their decision based on experience, on company policy or who is their best tradie “mate”?
The second pain point: Having the trade turning up to do the job fully and on time. Most companies have a system to send work orders to the trades, but what happens after that? We know from experience that the next time most property managers will even look at that job is when they receive a phone call or email from the tenant complaining that no one has been to the property or contacted them to fix the problem.
2. Communication: This is how our industry works: there are practically two ways of organising work in a rentals agency:
The first is to divide up the properties under management and allocate the groups to a manager, who will look after all aspects of the property: from lease, to maintenance, accounts, arrears, inspections, the lot. Sometimes they will have assistants to help with some of that work. It is up to the manager to manage their own workload and the workload of their assistants.
The second is to have specialist teams. Teams for Leasing, a team for maintenance, another for routines and other inspections. There might be a property manager who ties it all together to provide one point of contact for the landlord or the landlord will talk over problems with several people in the agency.
Both ways will create “silos of communication”, where the information can get “stuck”. If one team is not providing up to date and relevant information to other teams, you have a communication problem.
If there is an assistant helping a manager but not following up on the tasks, the manager has little to communicate back to the owner or even worse, if they don’t talk to each other to update on the status of each problem or issue, you have communication glitches. Believe me, this is more common than you think, despite it being – in the surface – a simple problem to solve.
Property Management Adelaide is a time management job. Managers have the same number of hours in a day. They must decide what type of job they will complete at any given time. Property Managers are actually very busy doing their jobs, but not communicating back to the owners what they have achieved, what is delaying a maintenance job or how many people attended an open inspection.
There must be a better way
Now, imagine what your real estate investing life would be like if your investment property is ticking like clockwork. Rent money paid into your bank account twice a month, routine inspections done on time, with meaningful, personally reviewed comments and recommendations that make sense.
Your property is appreciating in value while you have nothing to worry about. Maintenance is looked after in a timely manner and if your property becomes vacant, the leasing process is a fast and as smooth as possible.
All your bills and accounts are paid for you and at the end of the financial year, all your statements are sent straight to your accountant, if that is what you wish.
That doesn’t have to be a fantasy. It can be your reality. After seeing many landlords coming to us struggling with communications issues for years, we decided to combine many years of expertise of several professionals who have had experience in customer service in other industries to create a powerful organisation that can help you.
The way we see it is this: If you need to call or email us to find out what is going on, we are not doing a good job. Our job is to be on top of things, to let you know what will happen, let you know when it happened and complete the job.
We have invested in IT systems to remove as much as possible the repetitive and tedious tasks from our managers, so they can focus on doing what computers can’t do very well (yet!), which is to make judgment calls based on experience.
We have streamlined the way we manage our portfolio of properties, so the whole company has access to the same information. If you have a problem or query, you can speak to any of us. Any of us will be able to answer your questions or give you an update on your query. We are different because we have a set of approved trades that have been working with us for years. They know that the quality and punctuality of their job impact on our credibility with our landlords. They have been vetted and approved by us based on the quality of their work.
Not only that, but our Principal has a background in the building industry. If there is a maintenance problem that requires more than just a plumber, we have the knowhow in house to advise our landlords of the best course of action.
We have weekly meetings dedicated only to maintenance, where we review all open jobs, understand why some are taking longer than expected. From there, we have people in our team in charge of the follow ups, who will call the trades and understand why a particular job is taking longer than expected. If they need to wait for spare parts to be delivered, if they are having a particular busy period, we will find out AND we will communicate that to our landlords, so they are never wondering “what is happening to that oven that was not working? That was 2 months ago and I still haven’t’ heard boo from my manager.”
We have learned that having one person in the team, usually the property manager, in charge of receiving, processing, approving, dispatching, tracking and finalising all maintenance jobs in a portfolio of properties is not the best way to provide good services to our owners.
The nature of a Property Manager’s job is one of interruptions. They may well have all the best intentions in the world, block time in their diaries for daily follow ups with tradies, but if an emergency or request comes up, they will stop to attend to it. It is their job. We have taken the follow up job away from the Property Manager. We have a dedicated person who will contact the trades, request information and pass it on to the manager for decision making or communicating it back to the landlord.
You will still have one main point of contact, but by working as a team, we removed the industry variability.
We are certainly not claiming to be infallible, but we are extremely proactive in problem solving. Unlike other management agencies where Property Management is only part of their business model, with sales taking a major part of the focus and investment, Property Management is all we do.
Still have questions?
You might have. You might have had a few other Property Managers in the past and you are wondering if it is worth all the trouble to switch agencies again. Or as you embark in the new world of investment property ownership, you still have a million questions.
As we explained before, it is very difficult to make a decision based on a website alone. When you contact us, we can understand better your current situation and advise you on the best course of action.
It is simple
We are here to help. Just fill in the form below and let us know the best way to contact you. We’ll get back to you promptly.