10/12/2018
At 360 Property Management, we take in pride in being Auckland’s leading property management specialists.
There has been significant change in this sector lately, including the Government’s decision to ban companies from charging tenants letting fees.
Letting is one of the most important aspects of the property management process: there can be serious repercussions if you get it wrong, and delays in getting tenants can disrupt your cashflow and affect your return for the entire year.
At 360, unlike many property management companies, we have a dedicated letting team. They operate like our sales team and are incentivised to find good tenants promptly. This doesn’t mean they will put anyone in a property. They present the best cases to the property manager who then makes the final call with the owner’s involvement.
Letting isn’t just about showing tenants properties – we provide presentation advice, use professional photos and featured web listings on sites like Trade Me and realestate.co.nz, prepare signboards and window displays and search our database for prospective tenants who have indicated they are looking for particular properties.
Then, for viewings, our letting agents are available after 5pm and on the weekends – because these are the times the best tenants are available. We also show vacant properties up to two times a day.
We then complete due diligence on multiple applications, which includes credit checks, historic Tenancy Tribunal hearing decisions, court decisions, Disputes Tribunal decisions, REAA decisions, reference checks including current employers and previous landlords, as well as social media profiling.
Once a tenant is selected, bond is collected and the Tenancy Agreement is prepared and signed, and the management process begins: tenant induction and the ingoing inspection procedures.
As you can see, the process is significant and time-consuming. So after careful consideration, and monitoring of the process over the past few months, we have decided to charge the let fee to the owner as the first week’s rent.
Given the average property takes more than 10 hours of staff time – and incurs around $400 in marketing costs – we believe this is a fair option to pass on the costs. Our average tenancy is 27 months, so this would be a cost incurred very infrequently (approximately every 2.5 years).
Should you want to discuss this topic further or would like some more information around our process please feel free to contact me anytime to discuss.