Twenty years in property management teaches you a lot of things, including how to read a room, how to deliver news no one wants to hear and how to hold your ground when someone pushes back.
However, Sophie Kennedy Rush, Director and Business Development Manager at Buxton in Geelong, says nothing quite prepared her for the conversation she now has, every single day, with investors across the region.
Telling someone who has just spent $750,000 on an investment property that they may be facing several weeks of vacancy, plus unexpected compliance costs on top, before a single renter walks through the door is, she says, one of the hardest conversations a property manager has to have.
“You need to be experienced to be able to have that conversation in a way that doesn’t rub anyone up the wrong way – that is very educational and makes them feel nurtured rather than scared,” Sophie says.
She believes the goal is to make that person feel informed and supported, not blindsided.
The trigger was Victoria’s November 2025 rental reforms, the latest wave in what has been, by any measure, one of the most significant legislative overhauls the state’s rental sector has seen.
And while the changes have been building for years, this round introduced something that caught many investors off guard – properties must now meet full compliance standards before they can even be listed for rent.
Before you can advertise, you have to comply
Victorian rental properties must now satisfy four key compliance areas before going to market: gas safety, electrical safety, smoke alarms, and minimum standards.
That last category alone contains 15 separate requirements. Until every box is ticked, the listing cannot go live.
“In the past, we would advertise and then use that downtime prior to availability to get these safety checks and odds and ends done,” she explains.
“But now, everything needs to be finalised before we can even advertise.”
The knock-on effects stack up quickly.
Qualified trades are in short supply and once a compliance check is done, rectification works may be needed, which means more wait time, more bookings, more expense.
And for investors purchasing new properties without pre-settlement access clauses written into their contracts, vacancy can begin before a single renter application is received.
“Every rental property needs these checks and there are limited trades available to do them properly. You can get any trade to do it because important items can be missed, which can result in thousands of dollars worth of fines, both for an owner and an agent. If you want someone doing it properly and thoroughly, there are going to be delays,” she said.
It isn’t only new tenancies affected. When an existing tenant vacates, the property must be re-checked before it goes back to market.
The days of listing the same day a notice to vacate arrives are gone.
“No longer can we advertise that property same day as getting a notice to vacate,” Sophie says.
“We have to wait for that compliance check to come through to ensure the owner is protected from penalty.”
The liability no one talks about
Sophie is also direct about why she won’t take shortcuts and why she doesn’t let her staff sign off on minimum standards reports themselves.
“I’m not a qualified trade. I can’t tell you whether a property has correct lumens. I can’t tell you if there’s correct ventilation. I’m simply not a builder, nor should we be taking on that liability.”
The stakes, she says, are high. Miss a blind cord, and the owner faces an $11,000 fine. The agency faces $56,000.
“For the cost of a $150 check to hand that liability to a qualified trade, it’s a no-brainer,” she says.
“But we’re still having to justify that extra expense on top of the vacancy, and that’s a tough conversation for someone who’s purchased an investment for income.”
Proactive, reactive, and everything in between
Sophie has developed a simple philosophy for managing the expectation gap.
Get in early wherever possible, and be relentlessly transparent when you can’t.
For buyers, she works with them before settlement, which means flagging specific contract clauses that can secure pre-settlement access, buying time to get compliance work started before the clock officially starts ticking.
For those who come to her after the fact, it means walking them step by step through a process that can’t always be mapped out in full upfront.
“Until we get to this step and the initial compliance is completed, we’re not going to know the exact timeline and the next step,” she says.
“But because we are a big player in our region, we are luckily prioritised by trades and our works are done quickly, and that helps minimises some of the loss.”
What the data shows
Despite the weight of the reforms, Victoria’s vacancy rates have remained remarkably stable.
Sophie has been watching the numbers closely; Melbourne’s total vacancy has barely shifted – fluctuating between 2.4 and 2.6 per cent over the past twelve months.
Victoria as a whole has tracked similarly narrow ground, ranging from 2.2 to 2.4 per cent.
Geelong tells a slightly different story, moving from 2.0 to 2.5 per cent across the same period, a 0.5 per cent range that, while still tight by any measure, represents more movement than metro markets do.
Since the November reforms specifically, regional Victoria has seen a 0.5 per cent uptick in vacancy, compared to just 0.1 per cent in Melbourne and Victoria broadly.
“I think many regional properties – where perhaps they needed a little bit of love – have had to have work done, and that’s increasing vacancy. Partner that with investors who are cautious or concerned about legislation not entering the market or exiting we were bound to see an increase in vacancy,” she says.
An industry at a turning point
When asked about the impact of recent reforms on property management, Sophie says the landscape remains complex.
“Those that are still here will always be here,” she says.
“These changes pushed out a lot of industry peers. And then it’s made a lot of us veterans stay. This landscape is angled toward the educated or those who train staff well.”
She says the burden has fallen disproportionately on rentals compared to sales, and she’s watching with interest as other states move through similar reform journeys at different speeds.
“We’ll all be loosely aligned at some point,” she says.
“It just depends on how quickly.”