How To Choose The Right Rental Manager

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tByp8zBwmGE When you have an investment property it's really important to have a good team behind you. One of the most important people in that team is your rental manager. But how do you find a good rental manager and how do you even know what to look for? Today we talk to rental manager Lauren Robinson about how to pick the right rental manager for you. Rental Results Brisbane Property Managers 0:00 - Introduction1:35 - The difference between a good and bad rental manager4:39 - #1: How Do You Market Your Properties?7:22 - #2: How Do You Vet Tenants7:40 - #3: How Do You Manage Tenants and Do You Have an Online Portal8:10 - #4: How To Tenants Report Maintenance8:16 - #5: Who Will My Rental Manager Be?9:42 - #6: How Frequently Will You Inspect My Property?9:49 - #7: What Training Do You Offer Your Team?10:00 - #8: How Do You Handle Rental Arrears?11:58 - #9: Do You Offer a Service Guarantee?12:08 - #10: What Backup Staff Do You Have If Someone Is On Holidays or Sick?12:25 - #11: How Frequently Will You Communicate With Me?13:14 - How To Compare Property Manager Fees15:30 - How To Change Rental Mangers Recommended Videos: How To Know If a Property Will Be Easily Rented How To Increase Your Rental Income Transcription Ryan 0:00When you've got an investment property, it's really important to have a good team behind you. And one of the most important people in that team is going to be your rental manager. This is the person that's going to make sure your property gets rented deal with any issues that come up, make sure you get paid on time, all of that good stuff. But how do you go about choosing a good property manager? And how can you identify a good one from a bad one? So today, I have with me, Lauren Robinson from rental results.com.au, who's a rental manager herself been in the industry for nearly 20 years. And she's going to talk us through some questions you can ask, and things you can do to understand, okay, is this going to be a good property manager or not? So hey, Lauren, thanks for coming on today. Lauren 0:42Yeah, thank you, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Ryan 0:45No worries. So this is obviously a really important topic for people who have just purchased a property or maybe they've got a rental manager that they're not completely happy with. And they're thinking about shifting, how does one find a good rental manager? How can you look at the different websites and say, okay, who do I pick? How do I even know? Lauren 1:04I know. And that's that is a hard question. I think really, you know, often people ask their friends or their family, or maybe a sales agent they've dealt with, or often people will just choose the agent that they've bought through purely because they don't know where else to look. And I think it's really important to do your research online, have a look at how they're marketing properties, and also interview a couple of different agents. So I have got a list of questions that I'd suggest you ask a prospective property manager. Yeah, just to narrow that down. Ryan 1:34Before we jump into those questions, just so people can understand the difference between a good agent or a good rental manager and a poor rental manager? Do you want to tell us the story, again, that we did in a previous video about that property you got that was vacant for a number of weeks before the people shifted over to you? Yeah, so Lauren 1:53we, so there was a property in a complex that we actually managed quite a few in that building the property have been on the market for six weeks with no interest, no applications, we took that property off that agent. And within two days we'd been we were able to rent that property for $20, more awake. And the reason being is purely because of how we changed all the marketing. So we made sure it was marketed properly online, we have an online booking system. So tenants can book in times, you know, obviously, we're eager to make sure we got tenants in as quick as possible at a high rent. And obviously, quality tenants as well, not just anyone. So that's really important too. But understanding your market and knowing what price the property should be at is super important. So not all property managers are the same, which I think is a misconception out there, that's really important that you need to interview and make sure you you know who you're dealing with, Ryan 2:47well, that's having a property sit vacant for six weeks is so much money down the drain, it would just be painful to watch that. And obviously, as the investor, you're still liable for the mortgage and all the expenses associated with the property while that lie is vacant. So having a good rental manager can help you to rent your property quicker, it can help you to rent your property for more money, I just found it amazing that you took a property that was vacant for six weeks, and actually raised the rent and got $20 more than they were asking before and rented it out in a couple of days. And also getting good quality tenants as well. So again, not all tenants are created equal. So not all tenants are going to pay on time, not all tenants are going to treat the property as well as you would like and or stay as long as you would like. And so getting a good rental manager can help you get those long term good quality tenants that, you know, just make things much smoother to run and so much less stress to worry about. And I guess as well, handling issues that come up and helping you to do that. Lauren 3:47For sure. Yeah. So I mean, I guess when you're looking at an agent, it really depends on what stage where your property is. So say it's vacant, then your biggest pain point at that point in time is going to be finding a tenant, a good quality tenant, to rent it as quick as possible at the highest rent. If you've got a tenant in place, your pain point may be that your your property manager doesn't communicate with you or doesn't get back to you or that you're concerned that they don't know how to they don't know the legislation well enough to be able to handle issues or or it might be that you've been managing a property yourself and then scenarios are coming up, which you don't know how to deal with. So it really depends on where you're at in your investment journey. Yeah, but the list of questions that we let's go through those. Okay, great. So the ones I've got here is how do you market available properties for lease so that's probably and that really came back to that story we were talking about before with the property that was on the market for a long time. So that property had really poor photos. And it was sitting at the bottom of like in you know, on page four of, you know, realestate.com and you know, so all those types of things the owner wasn't getting any feedback at all after any inspection wasn't hearing from the agent. So all those types of things are so important. So someone's asking that question, what's Ryan 5:08the sort of good response that they would want to hear back? Lauren 5:12Yes. So in terms of how is your property marketed, you'd want to know that they're getting professional photography, ideally, floor plans, having you know, a 360 degree virtual walkthrough to really helps to qualify tenants that extra step, having an online booking system, accepting online application forms is really important, because it makes it easier for people to apply having a process where they follow up after the tenants have inspected. Now, do they have a database of tenants that are ready and waiting for properties that are similar to yours? How do they market properties? So is it going to be on you know, realestate.com? domain? How many other websites? Is it going to be on? Does it sit at the top of those searches? So they're the types of things do they have a leasing manager? So someone whose dedicated job is to rent those properties? And are they available, like on a Saturday to show properties as well? What time do they do viewings to on a Saturday, so they're so important, I just don't understand agents who don't work Saturdays. That's how busiest day of the week, we work till five in the afternoon. And there's typically two to three people out there showing properties all day. And it's just so important. So, Ryan 6:24so what's what's a leasing agent? Yeah, Lauren 6:26a leasing agent is someone whose dedicated role is to find tenants. So that's purely their role and person in our office. She's been here for over three years. She's been in the industry for over 12 years. So she understands, typically like what the tenants are looking for, she's able to match tenants to properties. So that is really important. If you've got a property managers say managing 150 properties, and they are doing the leasing as well. They might not be they might not have the time to show a property when a tenant wants to they might have, you know, routine inspections, or they might have an entry or vacate. So maybe, and often, what happens is leasing goes to the backburner because it's not a priority, and they've got other tasks are focusing on. Ryan 7:09Okay. So yes, I guess people are a good framework to start with, there's obviously a lot there. But people can pause and rewind, if they want to go through that again, Lauren 7:18a little bit, I provide the list. But the other thing is, you know, how are they going to vet tenants? So what so when they're checking tenants is against references or dot blacklist databases? In your How do they make sure that they're getting a quality tenant? And what information do they ask from a tenant? What technology do they use to manage properties? And will they have an online portal? So as an owner, do you have an online portal does tenant do tenants have an online portal where you can see everything? So it's really transparent? To most rental managers have that these days? They should?