With investment properties hardly cutting the cashflow mustard in Hamilton, passionate investors are finding themselves looking out side the circle for that often absent cashflow return.
Bing a passionate investor myself, that is exactly what I found myself doing. I came across a town not too far from Hamilton. It is a really good size with great commercial growth which showed me there was residential growth and stability.
I found a great real estate agent with years of experience whom was happy to show me around, warm me from the not so good areas. All the other professionals I found also seemed to fit my criteria and it looked like my portfolio was going to tick along just nicely without too much effort or input from myself.
Now being the busy mother that I am, I kind of forgot about my rentals. They were being managed by a company who appeared to be very professional and attentive. I gave them a list of jobs which needed to be completed and they promised they would be attended to straight away along with looking for new tenants.
I turned up to view my property just recently. The lawns had not been mowed for three months, trees hadn’t been trimmed, gates and fences had not seen nails or a hammer. I was fuming by the time I got inside and found the spray and wipe and not been anywhere near the kitchen and the vital work in the bathroom floor had not been completed. Of course I made my disappointment very clear to the property manager, who made all sorts of excuses under the sun from lack of available trades people to "oh I just can’t understand why the work hasn’t been done, there must be a glitch in the system"
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There was of course the small matter of the property still remaining vacant but that was not a wonder when nothing had been done to make it remotely appealing.
To test my theory that there wasn’t a lack of trades people, within a few hours I had organised everyone necessary to complete the work needed and get my property into tip top condition ready for tenants.
I learnt a valuable lesson with my out of town investments. I learnt that it is always necessary to employ a property manager. They know the community and they know how to do the necessary checks on problem tenants. But when employing a property manager, they have to walk the walk instead of talking it. Property managers should be recommended by another investor or other professionals in the area. It also wouldn’t hurt to ask locals who a good property manager is, even ask the local carpet layers, plumbers or builders, they will know who have a good reputation or not.
And the last and most important lesson I learnt was that I should not to be scared to be on the managers back constantly. I should have called every few days to annoy them asking how the work was coming along and weather tenants had been signed up. I didn’t expect to have to do this, and most professional can work quite well with out supervision. I am glad that I did finally say exactly how I felt and how disappointed I was in the service. And although it didn’t change anything, it really made me feel a whole lot better.
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