Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Realty Talk - Is the Perth party over?

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

Following a decade in the doldrums, property values in Perth have soared.  Realty Marketplace is reporting national buyers agents and interstate investors are flooding the market there, as they seek to cash in. Bushy asks long term local WA property entrepreneur, investor advocate Ashleigh Goodchild if it is too late.   Part of being a good investor, in any asset class, is understanding the power of leverage.   With new technology and the improvements in AI, you might be tempted to say “to hell with it, I can manage my own property and save heaps”.  We asked respected property management consultant Brigitte Stills  to outline just what is involved so you can decide if that is the best use of your time.   Subscribe for free to Realty Talk on the Property Hub channel, join our community and get more insights here: https://linktr.ee/propertyhubau 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, I'm Kevin Turner and welcome to this week's Realty Talk Show. Following a decade of the doldrums, property values in Perth soared nearly 26% from the COVID onset to the July 2022 peak. Since then, property prices in WA have continued to soar with growth of just under 20% in the last 12 months alone. Realty Marketplace is reporting national buyers agents and interstate investors are flooding the market there as they seek to cash in. So in this show, Bushy asks long-term local WA property entrepreneur, investor advocate Ashley Goodchild, if it's too late. Have we seen the best out of WA and is it time to look elsewhere?

In the second part of our show, we discover that part of being a good investor in any asset class is understanding the power of leverage. So it follows with new technology and the improvements in AI that you might just be tempted to say, well, to hell with it, I can manage my own property and I'll save heaps of time and much less frustration. we've invited interest industry veteran highly respected property management consultant and international best-selling author bridget stills to outline just what is involved because that way you if you still decide to go ahead and do it alone you're going to be better prepared

and also decide if that is the best use of your time hey before we start i want to say a special thanks to our supporters and content partners, realty.com.au, BMT, Tax Appreciation, Know How Property Finance, Get Rare Property and Apiro Marketing. And if this is your first time with us, a big welcome. You're going to find us on all podcast players and through the Southern Cross Austereo Network. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button. Help us to continue to bring you the best guests every week. Join the conversation anytime too on Facebook at the Property Hub Collective.

And we'll be back in just a moment. 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. WA's have always had an experience of a somewhat polarising property picture and many property aficionados find it fairly hard to forget the last resource-dependent lost property decade. So to add some intimate local knowledge to the debate, in order to find out what's really happening on the ground and where it's all headed in the West, we're joined again by long-term local WA property entrepreneur, investor advocate and property management

specialist, Ashley Goodchild, a director of SoCo Property and founder of her PM Collective and property profiling businesses. So welcome back to the show, Ash. thank you ash this is going to be a great subject because there's a lot of focus on wa and it has been for quite some months now so just to kick things off can you give us a bit of a picture of what's actually happening with local property conditions in wa yeah i get so excited talking about this topic because i what we see in the media is uh sometimes it's the same but it's quite different on the ground as um specifically for the rental market so we'll talk about the buying market to start off with so we found that it also started about three four years

ago and you know everyone wanted their three or four bedroom home 700 square meter block under 400 000 that was very a popular price point and we have now seen that change a lot in the last three years uh the rental sorry the sales home opens you'll find your property selling within maybe three days four days i would say uh very interesting i actually had one of the internet advertising portal sales reps coming to the office today and they were saying to me how they um they they're advertising their properties in the first seven days to the interstate market to market the properties and i said seven days it's taking you to advertised that the property is sold by then like you need to do this quicker and so we are definitely

seeing sales agents being unindated with inquiries within four to six hours of the property being listed we are seeing home opens cancelled before they get to the home open because buyers have offered a very good price on the condition that that home opens removed there's definitely that happening so it's not uncommon for home opens to be cancelled last minute we are seeing people panic buying and we're seeing home opens obviously very large we are also seeing when i go to home opens not only a flood of property managers and buyers agents attending but also parents that are attending with their 30 something year old children that you know 30 to 35 year old age age group and i think there's going to be a lot of parents that are allowing their children to

use equity in their home to help buy them so that's what we're seeing on the ground the rental market is a little bit different we see stories in the media where home opens have got 100 people coming through and that's actually not the case it's it's very different we're definitely seeing the rental market slow down and we're seeing it slow down consistently with how investors that have been buying um if i can mention sort of suburbs you know down the rockingham area city Rockingham was the first area that was popular with buying and it's also I'm finding the first area to slow down with the rental market where before we might get 30 50 people through a home open now we see around five. Interesting is that going to flow through into rents then do you think

because once that demand starts to ease out of it when the rent renewals come into play in say six or twelve months time those investors who rushed in on the back of getting quite high yields given that level of demand do you think they're going to see them soften off a little bit yeah i think the people that did buy at the start will be fine their yields are always going to be pretty good it's the people who i say are late to the party and have come to the party i mean i still get phone calls from people you know this week wanting to buy in perth and i say three years too late just about but there's definitely still good buying happening but yeah we're definitely seeing it with the price point i think that um in the past we were maybe

doing one home open to get those inquiries now we're seeing three home opens and potential um price drops in rent but generally the price the price drop in the rental um rental marketing is quite interesting because the property was probably always worth um that lower amount so if i'll just use for example the property was always worth 520 per week that was the price that a property manager gave but an owner says i want 550 per week because it's a rental crisis and i hear there's no properties available so what happens is the property does go you know what even though it's a rental crisis a crisis um people won't overpay for a property i think tenants are very rent savvy and so it's taking a little bit for a landlord's mindset to adjust

to what the media is saying versus what a property manager's on the ground experience is saying and we just need to wait for that adjustment to happen for landlords to um to to sort of see that and then to make sure their property is priced reasonably for the market to to get that so as you know if investors listening i always say that if your property is on the market for rent you do want to be seeing like right now at least five people through the first home open if you get zero to one inquiries or one person attending that home open i would suggest that you could potentially be a bit too high with your price and I would speak to your property manager about that if you have a situation where you've got 30 or 40 people coming through you might have been a little

bit too conservative I will use the word conservative with your pricing um and but the great thing is as a landlord is that you're going to now get a choice of applications and not feel pressured for one so I see a lot of positives with that um we are definitely seeing that the frenzy with the rental market is definitely sitting in the one to two bedroom unit space and every time we list a unit for one or that's one or two bedrooms we have to cap our viewings off at 30 or 40 attendees and that's consistent with migration and a lot of students coming in a lot of people just even couples from over east coming into Perth for work they're really wanting those one to two bedroom units so they're getting very good prices at the moment and there's definitely

a lot of competition there very interesting well uh i'd love your thoughts then on and you've touched on this a little bit already but to dive into it a bit bit deeper ash what impact is the sort of feeding frenzy from the interstate buyers agents and investors having on on the uh property performance in wa it's i'm definitely seeing people potentially overpay i'm seeing people getting into that panic buying where they're not really coming back to the numbers like you need to come back to the numbers and make sure it works that is definitely what we're seeing and and I guess what creates this as well is a lot of I can say Facebook groups and community groups around where everyone likes to share their good stories or I bought here and I'm getting this much

per week for rent and everyone's very rushed to try and not miss the boat but really I think you need to come back to the the core reason and not just what your friends or your family have done and their experience with investing really just coming back to the numbers making sure they work people are still getting really good numbers and good yields in properties and what I like the the way that I work is making sure that investors are educated with how other investors are buying. So just today, I had a phone call from someone who was looking at buying a property that I had appraised for $630 per week. And the agent had it advertised for sale looking for offers around $700,000. So my role would be to, and I encourage everyone to have someone who can give this

insight too, is for me to say, listen, if you are buying a property that is around $700,000, most of my clients that I'm seeing would want to be seeing around a $690,000 per week return to $700,000 per week return. That's consistent with what other investors are doing. So if this property only has a $630,000 per week return and it's $700,000, my job is to say to you, listen, I mean, you can buy it if you want to buy it, but it's not consistent with other investor buying. So I want investors to take that into account, that whatever property you buy, just make sure that it's, you know,

it's consistent with what everyone's doing. It's a real big thing of mine. And, again, staying true to your things, you know, your requirements, your budget, because at the end of the day, you're the one that's got to pay that mortgage. Absolutely right. Exactly right. So given that we've seen the bull run in WA for quite some time now

and then three or four years it's been in the run and normally property markets go through a bit of an S curve. Well, I'll have two or three years of really strong growth and then it'll tend to plateau for a period of time and before it goes through its next growth spike. How long do you believe that WA's current run is going to last and what's likely to happen then and when do you think? yeah i think naturally with any growth that people have or any market and growth that markets have

everyone just assumes there's going to be a big drop and the experts in wa are not suggesting that so what we're all hoping for obviously is we've had the growth we do hope to see that plateau um the experts and and i agree that i think two years we're still going to see um some good growth i would if i was to share a personal opinion i would say we've still got about 20 growth over the next couple of years I think it's too hard to suggest any further than that so I still like I said still think it's a great time to buy I just think you just got to be mindful of it I don't feel like we're going to get that big drop you know you hear sometimes people saying oh I'll wait for the market to drop before buying and I don't think you're going to get that

our affordability is still pretty good in Perth you know our tenant affordability is still sitting at 30%. I think we've still got a bit of a buffer, even when it comes to affordability with people paying rent. I think that renters, and I don't want to get crucified for saying this, I think renters have got a little bit more of a buffer in terms of their affordability to be consistent with other states in the country as well. Yeah, well said, extremely well said. So getting out the old crystal ball then, Ash, where and what do you think are the long-term sustainable rental growth opportunities in WA and what's your reason for thinking that?

Yeah, we've got to wait. We need this building market to start improving so we can build more houses. That's a really big thing. I think that our government's done a really good job with trying to bring in different grants and none of them are making a massive impact, but they're all making a small impact, which is great.

But I think that long term, we are going to see the best properties be around that $550,000. If you can purchase around $550,000, I think you're buying with that capacity and a little bit of a buffer. So for me, I think that's a great budget. I think three by ones are a really good option for people to consider, especially for your first home, because it's going to provide hopefully potential for you to buy a second or third which is where I really think that the financial freedom of being an investor comes in it's very hard with only one property um so a three by one's great and the reason why I

love a three by one is because it's so diverse with who can rent that property so for me I'm very big about making sure that your property is attractive to the largest type of demographic that we've got so looking at a three by one it's going to be suitable for singles it's going to be suitable for couples small families two friends so we're capturing like a lot there and potentially even larger families that don't have the um the means to buy some or to rent something more expensive they'll make good with the three by one they'll put the children in a bunk bed in the bedrooms and you know they can manage around that with a four bedroom two bathroom you know absolutely like if you can afford it great but we are um really restricting ourselves to those

larger families and it's not going to be suitable for a single or might not be suitable for a couple uh so we have got less of a market maybe wanting that and i think as time goes on affordable housing is always going to be needed and trying to keep within um those means of the the regular person uh is going to be really important so for me it's it's a in this market right now it's a three by one it's as close as you can get to 550 um it is i've seen definitely a change in the size of blocks happening at the moment so from a rental point of view i don't think block size really affects the the rent that people are willing to pay because some tenants see value in a big block some see value in a small block because it's low maintenance so the rental value is not really there

um so but you're buying cheaper if you can buy a 300 or 400 square meter block and now i know we all want the big block but if you can't afford a big block buy what you can afford at three um i've definitely seen that shift with um investors having to buy that smaller block just to get into the perth market and i think that long term that's what renters are going to be wanting and ultimately that's your that's your customer and who you want to rent it totally agree locationally i mean at 550 uh that's starting to push out now south down south in particular uh probably sort of bunbury manager of bunbury way these days versus where it was a couple of years ago in rockingham uh do you see see that continuing and when the market does sort of plateau uh are those areas

going to be affected do you think from a rental performance perspective yeah so trending suburbs at the moment are definitely down in that greenfields and mantra location definitely in bumbury as well um bumbury you know people definitely have have tried getting into that market but it's it's still classed as regional so there's definitely a bit of a divide with who feels comfortable with regional or not um there was actually a buyer's agent that went down there not long ago and i remember he called me up and he said ash what where do people get their money from in Bunbury there's nothing here like it's just houses like how do they earn money like I don't know I don't know them for the Bunbury market but um I definitely do get asked a bit about it

Greenfields uh and the Mandurah area there is you know we've got a good train system so I know a lot of people that live down in Mandurah and train it up to work in the city so definitely that Mandurah was once you know it's a place where if you want a week a weekend away but you want to be close to perth you'd go stay there so i used to always see mandra is quite seasonal um where we're definitely seeing more um long term there and then so the clients that are wanting the the bigger block established homes that's definitely where they're they're moving um if people are more comfortable with a smaller block and a newer home going north of the river is a great option and you've got areas like alchimos and yanchep what i love um and you know if it was up to me

and i had a choice i would personally go north uh i always say the sun shines a bit brighter north and i like the oceans up that way but the train line you know is being extended to yanchep um we've got the new builds but with any new land estate and with a huge influx of new builds in the area you're going to have to hold on to it long term to let that growth um go through its cycle because you've got a whole heap of new builds um they all look the same they all offer the same they're all coming onto the market at the same time and because of that the only way you can differentiate the property is by price so there's nothing you can do to it to create opportunity so for me um long-term hold i think north of the river would be a great spot and i

think the future of younger people are going to gravitate towards the north and the newer home and the beach and the train line is going to be up and running i think it'll be a very popular choice for them yeah very interesting yeah and it's i'm glad you mentioned the the greenfield stuff because it does dilute capital growth scarcity factor tends to dilute somewhat but if you're looking for the very long term uh then you can still do well in those like particularly with lifestyle locations like you're talking with is the beach and the coffee culture and the easy access to the city that goes with the brilliant system they have in Perth

with the rail and the freeways each side. It really sets the standard as far as what the rest of Australia should be doing, actually. But, look, Ash, really appreciate your thoughts on that and sharing your intimate local hands-on perspective on what's going on. we encourage anyone who'd like to learn more to reach out to you at ashleygoodchild.com.au by clicking the link in the show notes but thanks again for sharing all of this with us here on the

show today ash thanks for having me 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 know how 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. KnowHow 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. Well, in our continuing property management series, to help you consider the best way to manage your property, this week, we're joined by industry veteran, Bridget Steele, an international bestselling author, who's a highly respected property management consultant, coach and mentor, who draws on her 44 plus years of experience in property to help professionals with rent

roll growth, systems, procedures and much more. So welcome to Realty Talk, Bridget. Thank you. So good to be here today. Loving it. And I always like talking to people who had very long depth and breadth of experience in the industry, because as you and I know, the more things change, the more they actually stay the same in a lot of cases. So I guess to set the scene, Bridget, can you sort of remind us of the full scope of activities required to manage a rental property? Yes, look, things haven't changed that much when it comes to what you need to manage your property. I mean, with all this AI and technology and everything that we're facing at the moment, and you know, people starting to think

about using AI for this and that and the other, we still have a tendency to go back to what works best for us and what we're experienced in and what gives us what we are looking for i mean if you're going to be managing a property i mean as an agent or whoever you are going to be i mean the first thing you need to do is you need to go and inspect the property to make sure it complies and provide a report to the vendor or to the landlord investor and then in find out whether they want to you know organize a depreciation report they may want to do that now they may want to do it sometime down the track and ensure that you know you have the right technology in place to to manage that property i mean you've got to be able to collect the rent you've got to be

able to have a trust account to put the rent in to ensure that you can receipt it to ensure you can collect the bond in a right way that you can you know disperse it to the the correct authorities depending on what state you are you're in and you know it's all about the tenancy setting up the tenancy once you've got the tenant and ensuring that you can do this but then you've got to go and find the tenant you know you've got to have the right marketing tools available to you and that's got a lot to do with technology you know you need to ensure that you can have photography available and you've got to ensure that your landlord investor knows exactly what you are doing and what the requirements are from that investor for you to go forward with you know

with this information you've got to be able to handle repairs adequately and you've got to be able to register them and you've got to have this community communication technique where you can you know ring your investor and ensure that they're happy with what you're doing and making sure that the the tenant is aware as well so there's some of the things that you need to know about going forward when you you know when you you get that property under your sleeve and make sure that you've got it you know sealed up and then you can actually market it correctly for that landlord absolutely and and for those that are contemplating doing themselves or already doing it with the continuously introduced rental reforms and the increases in compliance and the

the very strict legalities around issuing notices and whatnot it's it's certainly not an area for young and naive players but i guess for those landlord investors that are considering the sort of DIY self-management style. What do we need to know to manage the property ourselves? Look, you need to have an understanding of the Landlord and Tenancy Act. I know that's a big thing to ask, but if you're going to be managing your property and you're going to be responsible and accountable for that tenant that's in there, that's going to be paying rent to you, you've got to know exactly what it is that you're doing. And it's not one of these things that you go and read up online and say, oh, they say I need to do this and that and the other. You've got to have a firm

understanding and you've got to know a little bit about the privacy act you can't go knocking on the door at eight o'clock at night to the you know say to the tenant well you know you reported a repair I've got the tradesman coming in an hour can he come in you can't do that you know we've had instances in the past where we've had landlords that have that have been in touch with me and they've said oh I'm managing my own property and the tenant won't let me come in and you know let the plumber through to fix the the leaking tap and I said why is that she said I don't know and I said when did you go there? She said at eight o'clock at night. And I said, you can't do that. You can only access the property from eight o'clock to about 5.30 of an evening. You can't go knocking

on the door. You can't go knocking on the door on a Sunday. And unfortunately, unless you have a little bit of knowledge about the Privacy Act, you know, you're just going to be pushed out that little further. And subsequently, that relationship that you may have thought that you had with that tenant, you haven't got anymore. So you've just got to, you know, make sure that you're on the right page. You've got to be able to handle arrears. You've got to be able to know what it is that you're going to be sending out to that tenant in regards to, you know, like rental payments. You've got to keep notes of your discussions with that tenant. You've got to be able to keep all of that somewhere. So technology is a very important thing. And

the tenant may say, look, I want my ledger. We've paid rent for the last three months. I want a copy of my ledger. And subsequently, you've got to be able to deliver that. So there is a lot of things that you need to know. And of course, you need to know a little bit about the tribunals. It doesn't matter what state you're in in Australia. You've got to know how they operate, how they function, and where you sit in regards to that tenant wanting to take you on for any reason whatsoever. And have you met compliance with regards to your property? Have you had somebody look through it and make sure that it was okay. We had somebody that phoned us up recently and they had a, they moved into a property, this was a tenant actually, that was leasing through

an owner. Now that owner had varnished the floors the day before, it didn't dry, these people went in, started moving their furniture in and all the varnish came off the floor, onto their goods and chattels, onto their shoes, subsequently they damaged the property. So here was this massive dispute with the owner and the new tenant who haven't even quite moved in yet. So they are the things that you need to be aware of. So, you know, if nothing else fails, go and get yourself landlord insurance. Make sure you're covered with landlord insurance because you're going to need something like that. But it's knowing where you sit as an owner investor and why would you want to stress yourself out to that regard to be able

to manage your own property. Very good commentary. And I think the issue now is that for a lot of DIY landlords, you just don't know what you don't know because the legislation is changing all the time. There's this continual ripple effect of rental reforms that are moving across all states progressively. and you know the legal side and the the slant in tribunals that you as you well mentioned

towards really protecting the interests of the tenant primarily means that just because you've read the act it doesn't mean that it's going to be interpreted that way when it gets in front of someone who's making a legal decision about it so there's a lot there and I think the other really key point that you made Bridget was around landlord insurance and I think one of the mistakes I see a lot of investors making is they just buy the cheapest landlord insurance off the rack from one of the big insurers. But as you and I know, the specialist landlord insurers who focus on landlord and property investment insurance have policies that are generally far better and have better protections and generally pay out more quickly than relying

on an off-the-shelf cheapie that you might be finding thinking that you're getting land insurance because the proof's in the pie. It's when you make a claim that you find out how good that policy is. So I love that. What I'd like to dig into in a bit more detail, if we can, Bridget, are the risks associated with DIY self-management. We've touched on some of them, but can you expand on those for us? Yes, I think one of the strongest ones is what you were just talking

about, having the right landlord insurance policy. There are a number of them out there. you know, you can buy them at the supermarket now, you can buy them online, but do you really read the fine print? Do you know what you're actually covered for? You know, are you covered for self-management of your own property? I mean, there's some actually that don't cover this and people don't understand that unless they have somebody that gives them advice on this, whether it be your accountant or whether it be somebody of that nature. So it is really very important if you're going to be self-managing. But at the end of the day, why would you self-manage

in this day and age when there are so many instances out there. I mean, why would you want to end up at the tribunal? I mean, how much experience do you have going to a tribunal? I've seen owners at tribunals. I acted for an agent not so long ago and I was sitting at the back there and I saw this poor woman at the front presenting herself and she had a young couple that was in the property and they had created some damage and she was wanting to make a claim.

But because she didn't understand the legislation and she didn't understand how to go about this subsequently the case was thrown out and she walked away in tears and I could totally appreciate that and you know the tenant walked away with a smile on their face so you really really need to know a little bit about what you're doing you know regarding reference checking how well can you reference check your tenant if you don't know the privacy legislation and if you've got all these documents in front of you and you're going to ring up the owner i'm sorry you're going to ring up the the this tenant's um you know workplace and you're going to be talking to their manager and anything like that they don't have to

give you any information because that's under the privacy legislation they're not obligated to give you any information yeah so what documentation they give you attached to their application for tenancy you basically can't reference check you can go online you can do searches like we all do Facebook, LinkedIn, any of those, you know, those sources and see what anybody says about that particular person. But can you go to the bank? Can you talk to somebody in their office? Can you talk to various people? No, you can, you may have the ledger that says this tenant's paid umpteen months of rent in front of you. And you look at it and say, oh, they've been two days late. Oh, they're okay. But their circumstances may have changed. You know, are you going to say to that

tenant I want three pay slips consecutively that tenant can say to you or that applicant say to you well no I'm not going to give you that and they don't have to so you're going to discriminate it's it's a very fine line it's a very fine line and it's a tricky one and if you have a disagreement well you know where do you sit where do you stand with regards to that the tenant can the applicant can provide you so much information and you just have to accept it it's what you do with it whilst you are trying to engage this conversation of finding out more you just don't know you know how you're going to manage repairs and maintenance if you don't know how to go about this uh you're going to check your your all your repairers your plumbers your electricians have all

got uh all registered and they all have their licenses and they all reach they're insured or you're going to get someone this happens all the time where a landlord says oh look my friend down the road he does my plumbing he comes in and then he doesn't do it right there's a leak and it floods a kitchen bathroom I've seen that over the years that I've been in the business you know it's all these things are so tricky and they're so concerning concerning that you know why would you put yourself through this drama why not pay your six to eight percent management fee whatever it may be and have peace of mind at the end of the day and not be have that thought in your mind if i don't do this right i could end up at the tribunal i could be sued you know you're

going to tell the tenant no you can't burn candles at night where in some states it's illegal to do that i live in a in a block of units and a couple of times the fire brigades come along and you know we had to pay what fifteen hundred dollars for the fire brigade to attend and it was a tenant that was burning a candle and that set the fire alarms off yeah subsequently if this happens to you as a landlord you are you're going to be faced with having to pay for that fire brigade to attend doesn't matter what state you're in it's exactly the same thing how are you going to carry out routine inspection yes well and and know when you can do them now because that that's changed quite considerably in reasonable time in recent times when you can conduct them and how you can

conduct them uh so it's certainly a moving feast and i guess one of the other things too that i wouldn't mind you commenting on bridget is that i think one of the traps for for new players in this game is if you don't issue the right notice in exactly the right time frame then the whole thing can unwind because again if you're not complying strictly to the letter of the law as far as the legislation goes uh you can really prejudice your own position by not uh not being absolutely precise on what you issued when what are your thoughts on that look most definitely you can't you know like some owners just go knocking on the door and say i want to do a return inspection or i want to send the plumber through whatever you can't do that you've got to

be able to you you know you've got to be able to provide a notice if you want to go and inspect property here in new south wales at seven days you've got to provide seven days notice you know in writing you've got to ensure that the tenant has actually received the notice I mean, as an agent, we can go through the property, we take somebody else along with us and we can open the door and we can go in there. You know, we phone the tenant and say, look, you haven't responded. Subsequently, we're going to be doing this and that and the other.

Depending on how they react, you will do it. As a known, you wouldn't do that. You know, you wouldn't do that. That's incorrect entry and that's, once again, under the privacy legislation. So you can't, you just can't access. If you're wanting to serve a rental increase, are you going to give the right notice do you know when you're going to give the right notice

how are you going to calculate the rent you know what processes are you going to use to do that should you wish to terminate the tenant for any reason uh do you know the process for terminating the you know that particular tenant for whatever are you going to disclose why you're terminating them or are you not going to say anything and then that tenant comes and knocks on your door which they have done and said you've issued me with a notice I'm not leaving I'm not leaving you know and that's happened many times where somebody said I'm not leaving and then the subsequently that investor has to go to the tribunal to evict that tenant and then one of the things is questioned at the tribunal what were the processes what line of communication did you

have how many meetings did you have where are your records show me your documentation you know do you have those and and the the issue of course and i'm not sure up to speed with what's happening in new south wales bridget but if you have to take an issue to a tribunal often it can be months away before you even get a hearing so if you've got a situation like that where a tenant says i'm not moving and we all know the law tends towards looking after the tenant in the first instance so you could potentially have a tenant in there for months you know in a fairly conflicting situation before you even get it looked at at the tribunal so there's a a lot of interesting challenges there well tribunals can be postponed anything up to three times i mean if the tenant

decides that you know they want to go away on leave on holidays or whatever it doesn't suit them they can postpone it they can postpone it for ill health they can postpone it for their job won't allow them to take the time off so subsequently you have got three months before your hearing is actually heard and three months of no rent yeah exactly and and tenants are increasingly much more au fait and aware with with exactly what the legislation says and and smart tenants can play the game they can extend things out within within the letter of the law to favour their position. So there's certainly some rafter risks there.

Let's flip the equation now, Bridget, and let's talk about the benefits of engaging a good property manager. Can you take us through those? Well, apart from peace of mind, I think it would be peace of mind and not having the stress of having to worry about ensuring that that tenant's looked after. I think the biggest challenge would be is to ensure that you've got the right tenant in your property.

and I think having a good property manager that's looking after you know your business basically your investment property they're going to take that responsibility off your shoulders they're going to ensure that they choose the right tenant they're going to reference check they've got all these documents in front of them they can do all kinds of checks because they're covered under the privacy legislation if they ring up an employer and say I'm so and so from this real estate office well there's you know the employer is more susceptible to have a discussion with them. The other real estate agent where that tenant's come from, at least before, of course, there's an obligation to cooperate with one another and to collaborate. Subsequently,

they're going to release any information. So you're covered in that regard. And you're meeting legal compliance. They know all about the legalities. And at the end of the year, you're going to have your financial statement without having to worry about it. You're going to get your rent on time unless there's a dispute or there's something, you know, wrong. These are some of the most important things and you're covered by the agency's insurance, but you still need to ensure that you have, you know, landlord insurance on your side as well. You do need to have that policy anyway. But as far as all of that goes, I think you're more secure by having a real estate agent looking after your property than you doing it yourself. I mean, look at the

dispute resolutions that you can be dealing with if you're managing on your own you know subsequently you're passing it on to somebody else that's going to take the the liability of all of this they're going to be looking after you and your interests and they're going to increase your rent when at the right time you know there's no point of bringing up and saying you haven't increased my rent because they know they're going to have to do that that's part of the agreement that you're signing up with that particular agent. Very well said. Now, I guess given the amount of churn that we're seeing

in the property management industry, for those of us looking to choose and engage the right property manager to best suit us and our property, what do we need to know to close out on, Bridget? Look, I think one of the most important things is that if you're going to be engaging a property manager, you need to find the right real estate agency for you and it's a matter of maybe talking to two or three in your area

or the area that your property is in and ensuring that that property manager has the ability to manage your property. And by that, I mean, do they have the experience? How long have they been with that agent? How many years have they been a property manager? What's their reputation like? These are the most important things and I'd be asking. And communication skills. And one of the most important things I find with property managers is their listening ability. Some have a tendency not to have to listen too much they are you know they over talk and the most important thing I find that if you're if you're a property manager you've got to be able to listen you've got to be able to listen to the owner most definitely but you've got to be able to listen to the to the applicant

to the tenant and you've got to be able to decipher what it is they're saying to you you know it doesn't make sense so those sorts of things are very important the reputation of the agency to ensure that they've got a good reputation how many properties does that property manager manage are they going to be the one managing your property or they're going to be passing it on to somebody in the next chair you know are they are they going to be staying are they solid are they secure are they happy in their position these are all things that you might say well you need to be a bit of a psychologist but i think at the end of the day you just need to ask a lot of questions you know and as a property owner myself look it's all about relationship

building and and making sure that you you have this conversation with the property manager and that you're all on the same page and you ensuring as a property owner saying to them i'm relying on you to look after my asset you know please keep in touch with me and let me know what's going on and make sure that you get these emails or get these text messages or whatever however you know you decide that you want to communicate but that's the most important thing and that helps your investment grow it helps your capital appreciation having a good solid property manager in place for you that's going to look after your property very well said i know we've only just scratched the surface but there's a very timely reminders on the very critical importance of good property

management to both performance of the property and risk so i just want to thank you for taking the time to share all of this with us here on the property hub thank you bridget thank you for having me. Much appreciated. Are you curious about harnessing your super for property investment? Propel your future with the enlightening online seminar, The Ultimate Masterclass to Self-Managed Superfund Property Mastery. Reserve your spot now at getrare.com.au forward slash SMSF. Spearheaded by Rasty from independent buyers agency GetRareProperties, 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. And that brings us to the end of this week's show. Make sure that you don't miss a single episode

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