Every Agent Has a Story: Kasey McDonald

Our next story comes from Kasey McDonald, BDM of Vystal Living and BDM Academy, who shares the two key lessons she learned after been thrown in the deep end early in her career when dealing with a landlord who planned to sell their property.

• Make sure you have every conversation, exchange and decision in writing. “Communicate, communicate, communicate.”
• “Don’t let your [new] property manager sink or swim.” Principals and leaders should be investing their time in proper handover procedures.

Transcript

Hi. My name is Kasey McDonald. Currently, I’m the BDM for Vystal Living across Hamilton, Darra, and Robina offices.

When I first started in real estate, it was up in beautiful little Darwin in the Northern Territory. I was 18 years of age and I was on reception.

The property manager left, so I was it, the last one. “Off you go Kasey, you’re in property management.” I’ve never done it before. I didn’t even know what was involved. As a part of that process, I was learning along the way and teaching myself all those different systems and tools.

My story out of this is that I had a landlord contact me and say, “Kasey, I’m thinking of selling my property. I’m not too sure yet. I’m going to organise an appraisal,” etc. At the same time, I said, “Well, I’ll just find out from the tenants whether or not they’re looking at renewing.”

I did that. I made a telephone call to the tenant, knowing the tenant’s not going to renew. Not once though did I actually update the landlord on that conversation.

Neither did I update the landlord of when I received the notice from the tenant to let the owner know that they were actually vacating.

All in had in my mind at the time was the owner’s going to sell because that’s what they told me. As well in regards to that, I didn’t lodge the bond in enough time and therefore the bond was released to the tenant.

I cost the business approximately $10,000 of money that they had to fork out and pay back a loss of rent.

The communication is such a strong message here in all facets of that. Not just when the tenant gives notice, but I needed to get it in writing in from the landlord that they were going to be selling that property. Unless it’s in writing, it doesn’t exist.

Don’t let your property manager sink or swim. Don’t just put them in a role without doing a proper handover. I just hope that today, principals, you learn; property managers, make sure you have everything in writing and communicate, communicate, communicate.