The Benefits of Engaging a Property Manager

The obvious advantage of using a Property Manager is to free you from the daily and monthly tasks required of being a landlord however with the intricacies of the Residential Tenancy Act you could be forgiven for thinking you need a law degree to understand it.

Ignorance is defiantly not bliss, especially when it comes to looking after residential rental properties. What you don’t know can hurt you, especially financially. From not lodging the bond on time to refusing to give the tenants keys at the start of the tenancy because they have not paid there rent and/or bond can incur substantial fines.

The beginning of the process is the most important part and having the ability to do a through back ground check on potential tenants is a vital part. Property Managers have the ability to access information that you a private landlord may not. Knowing someone’s credit history including any court fines, tenancy tribunal applications or checking landlord reference and that the person you are speaking to actual owners the property is crucial to getting the full picture before offering the property to anyone.

Accurate rent record keeping is also an important part of the process, not just checking that the tenants pay each week, every week but by law you need to keep a rent ledger. You can purchase software to do this however there is the cost and then of course actually inputting the data into it.

Property inspections are another part of the process that some private landlords are uncomfortable with, unfortunately sometime difficult conversation need to be had about the way people live in properties. Also your insurance policy may require quarterly property inspection including a report.

Repairs and maintenance are sometime areas landlords can get themselves into difficulties if they do not keep the properties up to standard they open themselves up to Tribunal applications or with not doing inspection damage can certainly happen whether it be intentional or by accident or neglect.

Even with the best checks and balances in place thing do sometimes go wrong. Knowing what action to take and when is extremely important. Having the correct documentation and evidence is important if you have to apply to the Tenancy Tribunal and can be a very stressful process if you are not used to it, additional you would have to take time of work to attend.

The fees that you may pay can seem a lot however if something goes wrong it can compound and cost a lot in a short period of time so knowing what action to take quickly and effectively is important. Also agency fees are a tax-deductible expense.

It all comes back to how much time you wish to spend on managing your investment property and manage the risk of something going wrong verses the cost of having a professional do it for you and removes much of the stress.