I spoke at the PPM National Property Management Conference on the Gold Coast in June and posed the question “who is the real boss”?
If you’ve read my recent articles, you will know I strongly believe an agent is a negotiator and not the decision maker.
What became clear while attending the conference was that property managers do the job no one else wants to do (most days).
If being a property manager was easy, property owners would manage their investments and tenants themselves.
With that in mind, it had me thinking, why is the role of the property manager perceived to be so difficult?
It’s because we are there to handle everything that “goes wrong”.
After 22 years in the industry, I can confidently say that no two days are the same because each landlord and tenant are different from the next.
If property managers embraced the mindset that they are not the decision makers, but the person with the professional knowledge and advice for landlords and tenants, their job would feel easier.
Our job is to be the person the landlord can trust to provide them with the advice they need to make informed decisions about the tenancy and their property.
Our job is to ask the tenant enough questions to provide the right information to the landlord.
Our job is to question contractors on why something happened and what the best solution is.
Our job is to ask questions, relay the information and be the “go-to” person for a tenancy issue.
How do I make property management appear so easy?
When I started Edge Property five years ago, I was adamant I wasn’t going to deal with a landlord who:
a) Didn’t want to be a landlord.
b) Didn’t know what it took to be a landlord.
I didn’t want to manage a tenancy where the landlord didn’t do maintenance or look after the property and the tenant.
If you have the right landlords, then any issues that pop up don’t escalate as you can resolve the matter quickly – whether that’s being able to book contractors promptly or talk with a landlord who understands negotiation may be necessary to help the situation.
To put this in place, I established client selection criteria.
I don’t take a new client just for the sake of growing my numbers and generating additional income.
Every client who signs with Edge Property must meet our criteria.
Not only does it make my role as a property manager easier, our selection criteria helps the landlord understand their obligations are under our tenancy laws. It also means the risk of being a landlord is minimised.
If we can spend so much time processing tenancy applications to make sure they are the right fit for the landlord and the property, what’s stopping us from asking if a landlord is the right fit for our business?
