Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk: A simple solution to housing affordability

Episode Date: May 18, 2024

There are cost impacts that are easy to recognise as ones that add financial pressure to landlords but the ones that are not so obvious are not always recognised or taken into account when assessing investment viability. It is difficult on both sides - for landlords and renters - so this week we might have a solution.  Also this week we flip the property management debate and ask what separates great landlords from the rest.   So tuck your ego away and hear what our expert has to say. NEW – join our Facebook group, The Property Hub Collective: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1857513011165686 Join the Property Hub community on Substack! Sign up to get Australian property news, opinion, and episodes in your inbox: https://propertyhubau.substack.com/ Subscribe to RealtyTalk on the Property Hub channel: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Email Property Hub is a collaboration between Bushy Martin from KnowHow Property, Kevin Turner from Realty, Andrew Montesi from Apiro Marketing and Apiro Media, and Australia’s largest independent podcast network DM Media. Business and partnership enquiries: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome to this week's Realty Talk Show. You know, there are cost impacts that are really easy to recognise as the ones that are going to add financial pressure to landlords. Things like council rates, interest on borrowings and general property maintenance. But the ones that are not so obvious, like restrictive legislation and compliance requirements, are not always taken into account when assessing just how difficult it's becoming for investors to maintain

their investment viability. Look, it is difficult on both sides for landlords and tenants. No one's denying that. But don't for a moment overlook the potential for rooming or boarding houses. Bushy talks about that this week with Mark Baker. Mark's a full-time property investor, rooming house specialist and he's the owner of roominghouse.expert and they specialise in the development conversion and operation of rooming houses. Also this week in our ongoing special series on the importance of property management we flip the table just a little bit and ask what separates great landlords from the rest in terms of achieving optimum property performance. Property management coach Hermione Gardner from Sidekick has a really interesting

perspective on that so all I can say is tuck your ego away and have a listen to her thoughts this week. Hey before we start I want to say a special thanks to our supporters and content partners realty.com.au, BMT Tax Depreciation, Know How Property Finance, Get Rare Property and Apiro Marketing. And if this is your first time with us, welcome. You're going to find us on all podcast players and through the Southern Cross Austereo Network. If you like the show, and I certainly hope you do, please hit that subscribe button and help us to continue to bring you the best guests every week. And don't forget too, you can join the conversation anytime on Facebook at The Property Hub Collective.

Just search it, The Property Hub Collective. We'll be back in just a moment to start this week's show. Property deductions can save you thousands of dollars each year. To make sure you maximise deductions, you need to work with the most experienced quantity surveyor in the country. BMT Tax Depreciation is the leading specialist in the industry. They've completed over 700,000 tax deduction schedules

for residential investment and commercial properties Australia-wide. BMT guarantee to find double your fee in the first full financial year deductions. Call BMT on 1300 728 726 today for an obligation free quote. Realty Talk and your host, Bushy Martin. Now, it appears that everyone in housing is feeling the pinch at the moment. Interest rate rises, taxes and overall costs that are increasing at double to triple the rate of rising rents, alongside ever more restrictive legislation and compliance that are all squeezing out and making it increasingly difficult for landlord investors to maintain investment viability. Similarly,

the drastic shortage of affordable rental housing alongside skyrocketing rents continues to make it progressively harder for tenants and renters to find rental housing and make ends meet. So what are the solutions? Well, one alternative form of rental housing that's making a strong resurgence under our current conditions is none other than rooming houses or what used to be more commonly known as boarding houses and here to open our eyes to this emerging opportunity is mark baker a full-time property investor a room house a rooming house specialist an owner of rooming house expert who specializes in the development conversion and operation of rooming houses so welcome to the property hubs realty talk show mark thanks for having me on mark uh love this

subject and love what you're doing in this area so I guess just to set the scene can you talk us through what a rooming house currently is and how it differs from other types of rental properties yeah sure I mean I like how at the start you mentioned you know rooming houses making a resurgence or boarding houses as they were traditionally known you know something that's been around for a very long time you know formerly there was like residential hotels as well where it'd be higher end people that live in there and you know have meals provided linen serviced, all that sort of stuff, and live permanently in that type of setup. Obviously, as housing markets changed, the demographic dropped a bit, but that's coming

back up with, as you mentioned, rental affordability. So to explain what a rooming house is, it's basically a building where you've got one or more, more than multiple tenancies under the one roof. And unlike in a share house where it would be a group of people choosing to live together and deciding who uses what part of the house. In a rooming house, each person has an individual agreement and is responsible for the part of the house, i.e. their room that they have exclusive occupancy of,

and the rest of the house is shared. Got it. Enough of an intro, enough of an explanation. There's a lot of legal stuff around that as well. No, and that sums it up pretty well. It's pretty succinct in that regard. So I guess given that context then, Mark, who are rooming houses best suited to then and i want to look at this from both a landlord investor

as well as a tenant resident perspective okay so if we talk about the you know tenants residents first which is then going to be the market for the investors um yeah look one that comes up a lot and a lot of people look at and i will get it out of the way first is students that's typically not been my market because it's more competitive and the uh yeah margins aren't as good and stuff like that so and you know thankfully you know over covid it wasn't my market because there wasn't a lot of students around um in other parts of the market yeah look it spreads right through there's you know key workers in areas um yeah um that it might be on contract work for six or twelve months that just need something you know all inclusive yeah i've got bills included the

place is furnished um and and it suits them um you've got people living longer term as well now in that type of market right down to the you know i mentioned before lower in the welfare end of the market where people who would otherwise be homeless so yeah that's your range you know there's a full range and you know that will depend a lot on what the product is as well as where it is yes converted property or a purpose-built property yeah makes sense and so if we we then extract that in terms of uh who's best suited to it from an investor perspective uh where would you position in that context look from an investor perspective and this is shifting a bit um but from an investor perspective it's it has typically been a later investment strategy not something you want

to get in too early because you can get a bit stuck um because typically they can be reasonably equity heavy yeah um financing is getting a little bit better now and you know with commercial valuations coming in and things like that it's starting to look like there's the ability to you know refinance and get some equity out but that's going to be dependent on the figures going well it's it's not typically an overly passive investment because yeah you'll need to be a little bit more involved there's going to be more more running costs more maintenance more things like that that happen so you know you need to at least have a bit of an understanding or you know be a little bit active or um have someone that you know that you can trust that can do that part of

it for you because yeah it's not as it's not a set and forget it's a bit more like i suppose a little bit more like a commercial type investment so yeah you'll see stuff advertised with the gross yield but there's a lot more cost in running it yes yeah good point so it's probably but it's probably still more a cash flow play than a growth play or is it a bit of both absolutely absolutely cash flow yeah yeah yeah and and people sometimes like to try and have an each way bet and say oh well you know what's an area that's going to grow look everywhere grows you know me personally a lot of mine have been in regional areas and i've had massive growth um in those but it was never my intent it was always cash flow yeah yeah so the cash flows but the growth has been a bonus it's

the cash flow and I guess because you've got multiple streams of income and you're not dependent on one tenant you've got it's going to plug some of those holes as far as that consistency of your cash flow is concerned. That's actually a really good point. Yeah well let's sort of pivot then into and we've covered some of them already but if you were to talk through the sort of pros and cons of rooming houses can you do that again and I want to look at this from both sides from the landlord investment perspective, but it's also the tenant resident side if we can.

Sure. Well, let's go residents first because that's what we did first before. Look, I suppose some of the things you're in close proximity to other people. You may or may not like that. Personally, it wouldn't be my go and it's probably not a lot of people's go either.

Yeah, there's sometimes things marketed on the point of we're creating communities or whatever, but really, I don't know if you've ever gone and stayed in a ski lodge for more than a couple of weeks yeah how well are you getting along with the other people by then exactly yeah there's the utopian idea and there's a reality um so look that's that's the yeah i suppose i mean it can be a positive and a negative i mean you might find a group of people you get along really well with that have got similar interests and stuff like that or it

might be yeah look just i want my own space leave me alone um so some of that can come down to again how the house is designed and that but um so there's the plus and minuses with that i mean the affordability is probably a big plus for renters to go into that type of property you're typically renting something that's furnished with bills included you know you have got your own private space and there might be a shared area if you want to you know be around other people um it's generally you know it's generally going to be single people so you know if you're on your own and you're looking for something affordable that's going to be the sort of thing that's going to be in the range yeah you can establish a rental history from that and potentially move

on or you might find you like it yeah you say long term yeah um from an investor point of view i mean we touched on that too it is cash flow uh me personally i know people sometimes go and say oh what's the risk what if i can't rent the rooms and things like that me personally i first went into rooming houses um and i was looking at it as a reduced risk because from one property instead of having one rent there was multiple rentals coming in in one property so even if everything wasn't full i was still likely to be cash flow positive from it yeah exactly so um yeah that's to me that's what i see as a benefit for investors um it's yeah you mentioned you touched on capital growth before i wouldn't necessarily say it's a growth play but it can be a good way to afford

to hold land in somewhere that you know would otherwise be costing you money you know for future use of land. Sometimes it's good for a future development site. Perfectly said. It's a very good point. It's a way of generating considerably higher income if you had future development plans for the site. As with every investment opportunity, there's always risks attached. I guess I'm probably more focused on the investor risk for this question, if we can, Mark. What are some of the downside potential risks associated with rooming houses?

Look, I suppose some of the downside and risk is it can be a volatile market, so you can get reasonably high turnover. And whilst a lot of the stuff in the Residential Tenancies Act are fairly favourable towards rooming accommodation, as in there's often shorter notice periods and all that sort of stuff, the reverse is true, that the tenant obviously doesn't need to give much notice to move out. so you can get a bit of volatility there and where i mentioned before interaction between people if you get a problem person in there they are protected by the residential tenancies act as well and can be challenging to move them on and other people to be leaving as a result so some of the risks there around you know how well that's managed tenant selection stuff like that um you know it depends on the level of the market you're in as well like you know lower in the market you could have a bit more risk of volatility and property damage and um and that

sort of stuff uh look there are provisions in the legislation to do it but you've got like that's where i said you need to probably be active and understand some of the stuff to be able to deal with that exactly right it's knowledge is power when it comes to that i know that a number of state governments are looking to tighten or review the legislation when it comes to rooming and boarding houses etc uh yeah is that a risk or or is that a positive i'd love your thoughts on that what what are they talking about what impact might have had in terms of those that might be interested in looking at this that's that's an interesting one because yeah i think it's good when there's stuff that makes it clear um however yeah there's rarely times that government

interference is a good thing but yeah if it's if it's stuff that makes it clearer so you know you know okay this is what you this is what you can do this is a standard that you need to provide you know this is how you do it then i think that's a good thing yeah um yeah i suppose we could touch on some of the things here like queensland for example um have recently gone and expanded what was in brisbane city council and said well you okay you can do it in every council now however in their stuff they've got a five occupant limit so it makes it hard to make money with only five people yeah so yeah i think that needs to be increased a bit and also a lot of the councils up there are still charging pretty hefty infrastructure charges so which affects the

viability too um victoria has been doing it for a long time we've got a reasonably good model i You know, a couple of years ago, Western Australia was looking at Victoria and things got put on the back burner when we had a global pandemic and I haven't seen them looking at it again, but I'm sure they will. ACT repealed regulations they had and we're looking at bringing it back in, but again, haven't done anything. So, yeah, I think having some good sensible regulation makes sense, but I'm always a bit wary about how far governments go

with the utopian views. Totally agree. If it ain't broke, why try and fix it is generally my outlook on life on that. But again, just to conclude the session today, Mark, for those that are going, oh, this sounds interesting, what incentives are there for investors? Yeah, look, that's an interesting one because there has been some come and go. There probably should be some more, and maybe that's where we need pressure on state governments.

i think queensland are entertaining it at the moment because you know they have had you know massive issues with housing affordability recently rents have skyrocketed there um so you know they're potentially entertaining something how far that goes who knows yeah um new south wales had some really good incentives and even grants available um for about 10 years that ended a couple of years ago so yeah that's sort of gone i've still got the potential of land tax exemptions and that's the biggest one in victoria is there is land tax exemptions available which i think is massive in victoria now given what's happened with land tax but totally totally yeah yeah so yeah not massive amounts of incentives but there's a couple yeah no good to know well

look um we probably only just scratched the surface today uh mark so we'll get to uh back to to talk more about the nitty gritties of uh the rooming house opportunity but i just want to Thank you for taking the time to open our eyes to the opportunity that's emerging. And clearly there's some potential to assist the cash flows and reduce the risks for both investors and tenants alike. So I suggest that everyone who'd like to find out more reaches out to you at roominghouse.expert

by clicking the link in the show notes. So thanks again for sharing all this on the show today, Mark. Thanks, thank you. Looking forward to the next one. Successful property investment is a game of finance. Do you have the right team and the right game plan? Realty Talk is brought to you by KnowHow Property. More than mortgage brokers, Bushy Martin and his team of investment architects set you up with a sustainable strategy structured to lower your costs, tax, risk and stress while increasing your capacity for growth.

Know How has helped over 1,900 homeowners and investors secure more than $800 million in property wealth. So get set to live more, work less and live your legacy. Want to know how to invest in your freedom? Visit knowhowproperty.com.au. This is Realty Talk powered by realty.com.au. Welcome back to our ongoing special series on the importance of property management. now as property investors we're always looking at what our property team needs to be doing for us but in my experience relationships are always two-way and each of us has actually got a pretty serious responsibility to think act and behave in a way that allows the combined effort to achieve the best results so it's the old story when you're pointing the finger at someone there's always at

least three more pointing back at you and this is particularly relevant in the property management of your property as the property manager and your property's performance is only going to be as good as you and your approach will allow them to be. So today we're actually going to flip the tables and ask a recognized property manager industry trainer and coach what separates great landlords from the rest in terms of achieving optimum property performance. And to do this, Hermione Gardner from Sidekick joins us again. So welcome back to the show, Hermione. Thank you for having me again. This is a good subject because the heat's generally always on the property managers but I want to turn it around today and reflect it back to the landlords to see what part they

have in the performance of their property. So to start with I want to go completely the other way and get you to share your experience across the board in terms of what a property manager might see as a nightmare landlord in terms of what they do and don't do uh that makes it difficult for them in terms of their outlooks expectations attitudes and actions or non-actions as they may be can you sort of elaborate on that for us of course well i'll just i'm sure none of your listeners fall into this category of course they're all amazing landlords um but i i don't know i feel i i don't feel like there's any nightmare landlords i think there's nightmare probably people there's nightmare communication there's nightmare relationships um and i think

that um look technically there are nightmare landlords out there but i i do think that when it comes down to it it's usually a clash of what each party wants or expects from each other and a miscommunication and mis like misalignment there um and i do think that a lot of the perception from a property manager's perspective of a nightmare landlord is actually just potentially a landlord who's had some really frustrating experiences, who is reacting a certain way, whether that's the right or wrong way to react. And a lot of property managers will label the same way in the other, you know, flipping it the other way where a landlord might think that all property managers are a certain way because of their experience. So I think that it probably

comes down to if i had to say if i'm a property manager wherever i have the most difficulty dealing with landlords i it potentially comes down to mainly if they don't want to follow the rules so if they don't want to uh come to the party where legislation is concerned so i'm a property manager and i have i've got some boundaries i have to play with it and i have to manage the landlord, the tenant, the tradies, I have to meet all of that within the legislation. I have to keep all of those, I think you referred to it when we spoke last, the meat in the sandwich. I have to keep all of that going, right? And sometimes there are, you know, there's landlords who aren't as familiar with the legislation, or maybe they are, and they just want to cut corners

or they're tired and frustrated of having, you know, so many costs and, you know, restrictions imposed on them. And so I think, I wouldn't call it a nightmare, but it can be very challenging for a property manager where a landlord does not want to meet those legislative requirements whether that's compliance or you know doing something throughout the tenancy that's not really considered above board and it's actually for many many years property managers maybe would just comply with it or go oh the landlord's you know in charge but now we're seeing that there's a lot of property managers who will what's called divorce landlords where they're not actually meeting compliance minimum property standards depending on what state you're in like if they're

not meeting those requirements for their property they're actually saying hey we actually don't want to take that on because it can cause too much of a risk for our business but we're spending so much time going backwards and forwards with this client that it's actually you know not beneficial or profitable for our business to have that client in place so I'd say from that that landlord's perspective, just remembering that property managers and you too, as the landlord have to act within those legislation requirements, it's almost like an invisible thing that you didn't really sign on for when you bought an investment

property. And you don't know a lot of the stuff. And especially I remember taking on new clients. And I've got also we have to do the smoke alarms. And also we have to do the blind cords. And also we have there's all these extra things. And the landlords would get frustrated, I didn't realize there was so much involved in this. Now, a good property manager is very good at communicating and educating and understanding that wow the landlord's already had so many costs at this stage i understand and the delivery of that message is potentially

different to where you know potentially another one's like just getting frustrated because the owner doesn't want to pay for something else so i think that i think abiding by the legislation is probably one thing that landlords really need to come to the party on to not i want to say be considered as a nightmare landlord because I don't think that's the goal. We're wanting to really work out how we can work collaboratively together. But I'd say the other aspect is real estate, property, money is all very high stakes conversations. It's going to be emotional. There's going to be emotion around it, you know, even if it's our investment property, right? If we've got a property manager calling us and telling us that, you know, the dryer needs

replacing. And that's a thousand dollars that we don't have in our current budget. We are not budgeted and planned for that. It's going to be stressful. If I've also got, you know, if I've had a shit, if I'm the landlord, I've had a shit morning with my kids and my, you know, my mom's sick and I'm like trying to juggle it all. And that call comes in, I may not react the best to that call. And I may yell or be blunt or be critical of my property manager, because that's just the first person that's there on the phone that's getting my reaction for the day but as we you know we can't be in control of anybody else really but ourselves so I would say that whether you're whether it's about your investment property you're dealing with your property manager in life

in general you're in control of your reactions and if your cup is spilling over with those you know negative reactions it's probably not just that property manager like it probably is a culmination of a lot of things going on for you, all of those financial pressures on top of all your life pressures and everything else. So sometimes just remembering that and that remembering that property managers probably just trying to do their best, whether they're communicating it in the best way or possible, I'm not sure. But I think as far as if I think about from a property manager's perspective, like I would just want the person I'm dealing with to treat me with respect whether I'm delivering good or bad news to them because I think the other

air quotes nightmare landlord traits would be landlords that are aggressive or reactor reactionary or that seem to fly off the handle at the smallest request or something that puts them outside of the normal day-to-day property management so I think it comes you know but that's that's for all of us in life we're all only in control of ourselves and our own reactions yeah extremely well said and i think uh with the the level of increased liability uh and compliance that's now required and there's constant changes happening to the legislation right around the country in that regard that smart landlords are going to recognize that the property manager is across the potential liability issues that are attached to that and while they might grumble

about having to spend the extra money yeah if they're trying to do that on their own they're not even aware and they end up getting sued for something that they weren't across, then I think the recognition the property manager has a professional responsibility and is potentially also liable if those things aren't followed through, then it starts to put a different perspective on things. So that's awesome. Let's sort of turn things around now and sort of from the other side of the equation, I'd like to get your thoughts on describing a much more ideal landlord from a property manager

perspective in terms of helping them to successfully manage their investment to everyone's benefit thoughts on that um i mean in just the opposite of what we were talking about i think um you know a perfect landlord would yeah definitely be one that understands that we have to work within the legislation um that you know even though sometimes we might feel frustrated in the moment we're trying to work towards a bigger more positive outcome overall um i think that a perfect landlord if i had to describe it would be someone that like understands the the costs of running and maintaining an investment property and has actually budgeted for and planned for that cash flow which i know is easier said and done a lot of mom and dad investors are not you

know super flush with cash flow on their investment properties like not making money out of them really stuck with a lot of them sometimes um but you know if there is a possibility to have that you know that mindfulness around that um so the landlord here kind of has a plan in place i think i remember there's a lot of uh investors who end up with investment properties whether that be accidentally they've inherited them or maybe they rushed in and got one because that's what everyone was doing and now they're you know really struggling I've got a really good friend who you know they own two investment properties but like they are beyond stressed and unable to kind of service both of those and they're putting money into both of those properties to make them work so

it is stressful when a repair or something comes along because that comes out of their you know the kids not doing sport that that quarter or they're not able to go on that family holiday that they've been planning and there's a bigger purpose obviously but you know that can be that be really stressful so where possible for a landlord to be as planned and understand that um but i think also it's it's around remembering that two-way communication it like it there is an onus on the property manager i do believe and this is something that the industry could do a much better job on is communicating and educating with landlords so they understand you know what potential costs might come up that at the moment a lot of the industry just leaves it up to the

investor to know um but there's some pretty cool you know things um out there now where property managers can have access to tools where they can actually get assistance in mapping out say what a maintenance plan might look like or what you know the um you know tax depreciation might look like and really helping them from that perspective so if the property manager is demonstrating that a really great landlord can build that trust with them and actually kind of to trust them and let them to do their job as well. I think the other, you know, we put the perfect air quotes in, it would be for me as a property manager, it would be that you trust me to do my job and give you the best advice. But as a property manager, I have to earn that trust. I

have to show you that I'm acting in your best interest, that I'm communicating with you. And like, I earned that right to have that respect. And when I was a property manager, you know, it might've taken a couple of years of me managing properties for people until I could just say, you know hey john this has happened here's what i'm doing and i bet yep hermione you've got it whereas like a newer landlord who i hadn't managed before we don't have that trust and rapport and relationship so is that on the landlord i don't think so i think that the onus is on the property manager to build that trust to give that education to show that they're acting in the best interest and being of value and an added benefit right if you're paying for this service you want to

be of added benefit in that person's life yeah yeah beautifully said and we've covered a lot of ground there but are there any other do's and don'ts that landlords need to take into account when a property manager is looking after their investment that we haven't covered hermione um look i don't know that there's any don'ts as such anything that someone as a property manager might say i wish landlords didn't do this i don't know i i always think that as the service provider like we need to listen to the landlord feedback even if we don't like what it is and actually redesign and improve our service to meet the needs of the landlords of the investors um you know if i'd say if there's any other do's or don'ts again i think this should be on the property manager's side is

my true belief but if there's any lack of clarity or you don't understand what the property manager is talking about or what they mean or you have any you know um miss uh misalignment in your head around like what that next steps are is actually just like pick up the phone a lot of communication now is done by email in the property management space. And that's because property managers want things in writing. They want the paper trail, which is fine. I encourage property managers to pick up the phone and have conversations. But also like I would suggest from a landlord's perspective, if you're unsure or uncertain is actually having a phone conversation because nine times out of 10, you'll resolve all of that in the space of like three minutes,

as opposed to that, that back and forward. Now I know that's hard because we're all so busy. but so again sometimes just having that five or ten minute conversation look any other do's or don'ts look as I said remembering that the property managers on the other end of that line are human people do make mistakes and overlook things give people the benefit of the doubt and opportunity to rectify but if something doesn't feel right or something doesn't add up it's I think it's like we spoke about last time it was you know say something sit down have a meeting with them and escalate that because if you're paying for a service it should be right most of the time yeah yeah extremely well said i think you make a very

good point in this sort of digital age where we rely on technology uh to do the communication because we're trying to be efficient i know that uh we've always operated on the rule that a an email is a confirmation of a conversation you've actually had not not the the first identification of what you're talking about so i think there's some really almost sounds old-fashioned but in terms of that relationship building piece between the landlord and the property manager that that quick conversation that you've mentioned which is then it becomes a two-way communication not a one-way communication might feel like it's taking time but in terms of reducing your overall impact down the track is is gold so look uh some great points there if you

sort of summarize this whole exercise uh hermione uh how can landlords better help property managers to get the best out of their investment properties so um yeah look again i i think there is a lot of onus on the property manager to be working to improve this from from their side um but you know to summarize it's it's like what we've spoken about it's it's having open communication with your property manager picking up the phone to speak to them if you know you're confused or uncertain about something um i think being really clear with your expectations i think you know all of us in probably general life can make assumptions um but being over overly clear and over communicating with what you expect for them will not only then help them meet those expectations but then it

helps build the trust and the next time it comes up they know how to deal with things the way that that you want them to be dealt with. A lot of different landlords have different ways they like things to be dealt with. It comes down to repair. You've got, you know, landlords who are like, oh, you just do it. You've got some landlords who want five quotes on everything.

You've got some landlords who are like, oh, Uncle Bob's going to do it for me. You've got some landlords who are like, I'm going to come and do it. So being really clear, again, I do think the PM should be asking those questions up front and determining that, but there's different circumstances for, you know,

different repairs and things that come up. So being clear in what your expectations are is going to go a long way to helping them deal with you in the way that you want to be dealt with. And then I think once that trust is built, like sometimes it's actually just getting out of the way and letting them do their thing. I think we can try and control things a lot. But if you have a really great PM, like sometimes we need to step out of the way, let them do their thing, trust them and take their advice with that caveat of that trust has to be there. Yeah. And then the only other thing I would say is like, if as an investor, like if you are struggling, like whether that be financially and, you know, you really are struggling to make ends meet or anything like that, it's actually having a proactive conversation with

your property manager. You'd be surprised how many property managers just think that all investors are fine. They're pretty flush. They've got lots of money lying around, sitting on their golden toilets you know with all their monopoly money um you know a really good pm knows that it's not like that but you know if you've got the trust and relationship there and you're you know you're struggling to make those mortgage repayments is actually having a conversation with pm and finding out what can we do to you know increase the rent reduce some of the costs like having that conversation with them which i i know that some investors will hold off doing because of you know pride and or you know the tall poppy syndrome not wanting to talk about money and all sorts

of different things but they're there to help and you know i know i had a i can specifically remember one landlord they said look you know we're really struggling we're thinking we might need to sell the property because we just can't make this work anymore and a few simple changes we made like we you know we we did an extra rent increase you know that was reasonable to keep the tenants in the property um you know which actually then kept the tenants in the property which saved them you know the week or two of vacancy um you know we looked at some of the costs that they were paying regularly and ongoing and saw what we could reduce there. We looked at their insurance. We saw how we could reduce the cost of that. And then we put them in touch with our referral mortgage broker partner

who looked at their mortgage and got them a reduced rate. And then within a couple of months, they could afford to manage their investment property. So a good PM will be able to help with that and point you in the right direction and have those conversations that you might be too afraid or embarrassed or nervous to have because you're the landlord and you should have it all figured out but no one's got it all figured out like use that expertise and let them help you manage your investment property yeah some great thoughts there really appreciate all those insights hermione which certainly reinforced the two-way mutual respect nature of successful property relationships and the need to help others in order to actually help yourself which you've

outlined very well particularly when it comes to the you know the mission critical nature of property management to the overall property performance but before we go i want to take this opportunity again to thank you for all of the great coaching and training work you're doing at sidekick.net.au to help property managers to grow and thrive to better serve their landlords investors so thanks again for joining us here on southern cross austereos property health realty talk show hermione thank you thank you for having me i'll do what i can on my side are you curious about harnessing your super for property investment propel your future with the enlightening online seminar the ultimate master class to self-managed super fun property mastery

reserve your spot now at get rare.com.au forward slash smsf spearheaded by rasty from independent buyer's agency, GetRare Properties. This masterclass unravels strategic property investment using your self-managed superannuation fund. You know, it's not just about learning. It's about transforming your financial future through education. So embrace this opportunity to enrich your investing acumen. Enroll now in the free masterclass and begin a journey that marries insight with action, leading to a financially empowered tomorrow. Unlock bonus content now as a premium subscriber.

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at the Property Hub Collective. A special thanks to our supporters and content partners, realty.com.au, BMT, Tax Depreciation, Know How Property Finance, Get Rare Property, and Apiro Marketing. I'm Kevin Turner, and on behalf of Bushy and the Property Hub team, we look forward to seeing you again next week.