No matter where you live, the real estate market has been booming lately. Here in Australia, it’s no different. The question is, though, how can we tap into this market as investors or entrepreneurs? For most of us, the answer is to acquire properties to sell or rent out.
Rentals come with a whole slew of potential problems, though. Resources like this one might offer pointers for renters, but what about landlords? There have been changes to legislature in many parts of Australia that add on additional layers of difficulty as well.
This is where a property manager can come into play. Now, if you aren’t entirely familiar with them, don’t worry – that’s what we’ll be covering today. Stick around to learn about what they are and how they might help you out with landlord responsibilities.
What are Property Managers?
Put simply, this is a position that involves managing the day-to-day operations and the nitty-gritty of a rental property. They can be used on residential, commercial, or industrial sites, but of course today we’ll be focusing on their application in the former. Their specific duties tend to vary depending on who they work for as well as the specific needs of each property.
On a general level, though, they tend to be in charge of security arrangements, upkeep of facilities, and maintenance requests. Since they’re a third-party establishment, the landlord won’t have to deal with those calls themselves. In circumstances where the landlord rents out a
lot of properties, you can probably start to see why they’re so useful.
What Else Can They Bring to The Table?
Since there are a lot of tenants looking for properties around here in Cairns, you’ll probably be getting a lot of applications once you list a property for rent. A property manager can help sort through and do initial screenings for those applicants if you don’t want to do all of that on your own. It’s certainly a helpful tool, at least.
In addition to that, they can help with things like renewing leases, drafting new ones, and signing them on your behalf as the property holder. Naturally, it will be at your discretion. You’ll get to decide how involved you want your manager(s) to be.
You can find some additional details on what they might be expected to provide here: https://www.justice.act.gov.au/renting-and-occupancy-laws, although it’s worth noting that you should familiarize yourself with these sorts of policies as well. That way, you can be covered across all the bases.
How Does Residential Property Management Work?
Delving into the specifics now, we can take a look at how it works with residential properties in particular. There are several types of residential spaces that they can help with, such as single-family homes, town houses, condominiums, apartments, vacation homes, and multifamily homes, just to name a few. As you can see, it’s rather flexible in that sense.
As you bring in more tenants, a manager can help out with maintenance requests and repairs, since those are bound to happen no matter what type of property you own. Just keep in mind that there can sometimes be privacy concerns from residents with this type of property, but most managers already have that on their radar.
Are Property Managers Worth Hiring?
For our final question today, we’ll look at whether or not it’s worth bringing in a third party to help assist with these endeavors. To be honest, if you are only renting out one room or one single property, then you probably won’t find it worth it. However, as you expand your operation, more and more work will start to pile up.
At a certain point, finding a local property management service in Cairns might end up in the cards. This is especially true if you are looking to add more properties to your list of rentals. You see, if you’d prefer to stick to the business aspects of this all, then you may find that these managers are worthwhile.
We’ve covered much of this already, but it’s worth repeating to hammer home the point. Property managers can take care of responsibilities such as finding tenants, collecting rent, managing maintenance requests, and dealing with tenant issues. Thanks to this, they can save landlords time and effort, especially if they have multiple properties or limited availability – all important things to factor into the big question here, right?
While they do come with a cost (that usually being a portion of the rent collected), they also make the operation much more efficient overall. Additionally, keep in mind that the maintenance requests would fall on you as a landlord if you don’t have a manager. Finding contractors isn’t always easy.
If you’re thinking of renting out more properties here in Australia, hopefully this article has shed some light on how you can increase the efficiency of your rentals.
