Property Manager

• Use a professional property manager

The small fee property managers charge to manage you property is money well-spent. The fee is a tax deductible expense and saves you hours of work and stress. As well as collecting the rent, your property manager will appraise prospective tenants, check references and rental history, collect rental bonds, carry out routine inspections, organise repairs and maintenance, follow up rental arrears, attend dispute resolution tribunals on your behalf and organise payment of all expenses if you wish and most importantly, ensure you are meeting all obligations under the Rental Tenancies and other acts.

• Seek a reasonable market rent

Your property manager should be able to give you a good idea of a reasonable rent to charge in your area. You can carry out your own research on property web sites. At times, it may well be better to accept $10 or $20 less per week to avoid long vacancies and also to achieve longer term tenancy agreements with good tenants. Insisting on the maximum available rent could mean accepting shorter term tenancies of three months or less and losing good tenants.

• Annual pest inspection

  An annual termite inspection is a small price to pay when you consider the many thousands of dollars of damage that termites can cause.

• Consider starting a ‘sinking fund’ for major repairs and upgrades

  Even with the best tenants, all houses will eventually need major repairs like internal and external re-painting and perhaps, carpets replaced. It therefore makes sense to budget for this expense well in advance.