How to Choose the Right Property Management Near Me

To protect your investment property’s value, it’s best to rely on a skilled real estate professional who knows your local market inside out. They will update you on market trends, rent your property for the right price, and provide you with the best rental yield.

That may sound easier said than done, though—because you may be unsure how to choose the right property manager. According to IBIS World, the residential property leasing and management market in Australia is highly competitive, indicating that “no property management firm dominates the industry.”

In other words, there is no universal answer. However, this guide highlights key factors to help you identify the ideal property manager for your needs.

What are the Responsibilities of a Property Manager?

When choosing a property management expert, it’s essential to understand their key duties and responsibilities to have a solid foundation for your evaluation. These tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Inspecting and assessing your rental property to ascertain its rental market pricing
• Promoting your rental property across multimodal channels to attract potential tenants
• Screening potential tenants (via background checks and references) to qualify suitable tenant profiles
• Negotiating and writing tenancy agreements
• Offering payment systems to facilitate timely rental payments
• Detailed property condition reporting at the commencement and conclusion of tenancies to minimize unnecessary financial outlay or worry, between tenancies
• Routinely inspecting your rental property to ensure that your tenants comply with their lease agreements and identify required repairs or schedule preventative maintenance
• Resolving conflict and compliance issues, such as responding to maintenance requests and resolving disputes
• Managing your risk, by providing updates to the evolving landlord compliance requirements and connecting you to third-party specialist landlord insurance products
• Facilitating insurance claims on your behalf
• Managing your rental property finances, which includes budgets, payment of outgoings, and financial reporting
• Offering owner portal technology to give you full transparency over the outcomes of your investment property, including digital and virtual tour property inspections

What are the Benefits of Choosing the Right Property Manager?

A rental property is an important investment, and choosing the right property management agency can be the difference between a stable return and a sub-optimal return, with added headaches. Below are the main benefits a property manager can offer you:

• Saving Time and Energy: Property managers can look after your investment, so there is no need for you to spend your time on market research, listing rental properties, marketing, managing compliance, tenancy and bond documentation and processes, managing rental payments, coordinating tenancy vacates and property inspections making this processes seamless.
• Receiving Regular Feedback: Your property manager will send you regular feedback about your property performance and advise you on renting, selling, and more.
• Increasing Cash Flow: With a property management expert, your property can generate extra cash flow, as they are astute to market pricing increases and have streamlined rental management operations to facilitate tenant retention

What to Look for in a Property Manager

Use these points to create a checklist of requirements for property management experts before exploring and assessing your options.

Experience in the Local Market

You don’t simply want any property manager with experience. You want property managers with experience in your local market, Perth. In the end, Perth as the world’s most remote capital has unique market trends and rental values. Such an expert will know its demographics and amenities, understand its trends, consider unique tenant needs and regulations, and act accordingly.

Suitable Services

What are the service offerings of each property management agency? The previous list has guided you through the main services, which should serve as a baseline. Now, you ought to consider what extra services you need.

For instance, maybe you want access to property finance or insurance services for your current and future investment properties, industry partners who can develop long-term strategies or access to a specific finance solution.

Are these services available, and if so, for how much? Or are they included in the main package? It’s important that your property manager of choice offers tailored packages that serve your unique needs as an investor.

Strong Communication

Communication skills are nonnegotiable for a landlord-property manager relationship. That is to say, you should be able to trust them, and they should be accessible, communicative, easy to work with, informative and transparent with you about their practices and dealings.

Ideally, there should be consistent communication and accurate reports that keep you updated about your property. As such, it’s a good idea to ask them about their point of contact and check reviews to see how satisfied clients are with their communication.

Positive Digital Footprint

How is the digital footprint of each property management service on your list? How satisfied are investors with them? To get the answer, check reviews and testimonials from landlords and tenants on third-party review sites (like Google Reviews).

This way, you will know whether such a property management agency keeps its promises to investors or not. It also demonstrates the satisfaction level of tenants, which impacts how desirable your property is for potential tenants.

Solid Investment Strategy Planning

You probably have financial and lifestyle goals, but how does your investment strategy fit into that? Quality property managers help clients and investment property owners with valuable insights and tested strategies that serve their unique goals. They should constantly discuss the needed changes to the investment strategy to accommodate market updates.

Effective Strategic Marketing

Property management services should support clients like you with effective marketing strategies and efficient processes that keep your property’s vacancy rate to a minimum. Of course, these strategies should be result-driven, meaning that they translate into strong tenant attraction and increasing leasing rates with reasonable spending.

Additionally, they should have a network of renters to market your property to for heightened exposure, another aspect that demonstrates the importance of experience in your local market. You can ask property management services for their historical vacancy rates and days on the market.

Thorough Screening Process

Look for the success rate of a property management provider when it comes to checking prospective tenants

Do they check the credit history, rental history, and employment status of applicants? Do they go to court on your behalf if a conflict with tenants escalates? If so, what is their success rate?

A thorough screening process will ensure tenancies are easy to manage and not problematic for investment property owners.

Value for Service

Is the property management package you are considering worth its price? Compare different packages, and look at the available services, their scope, and their quality (compared to their fees). Do the fees correlate with the value offered? Also, keep in mind the added services with their costs, and take into consideration the money you may lose due to vacancies or charging less rent than the market average Historical vacancy rates offer a sound metric to gauge the level of tenant retention and pace of leasing to new, quality tenants.

Ongoing Maintenance and Inspections

After securing quality tenants, does the service you have in mind manage the property efficiently? To illustrate, do they attend all inspections? Do they conduct them thoroughly, providing you with digital photos and detailed reports? Such measures protect your property from costly damages and will prevent minor maintenance from turning into major repairs.

Otherwise, do they address the complaints of tenants, resolve maintenance issues fast, and keep the property in good condition? If so, owners can rest assured that their property is a safe environment for tenants and promote tenant satisfaction.

Conclusion

To conclude, choosing the right property management agency is possible if you make a list of the services you require (including basic and additional functions). This way, you can be updated about your investment property, save time and energy, and increase your profit.

If you are indeed looking for highly communicative experts and tailored solutions, a portfolio-style management like ours should appeal to you. Talk to our professionals at HERE Property, and start boosting your investment portfolio.