19 March 2010

Agents and renters

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I’m recently back in the rental market, just selling and waiting to buy and build on ‘to be released land’.

I’ve rented with a company in Gungahlin and couldn’t believe how completely dodgy these agents were and how terrible they treated renters.

My rent ended up being different to what was advertised, something to do with monthly, but I couldn’t work out the monthly amount to be the same as the weekly amount the agent gave me. It ended up being $50 more per week. Didn’t matter which way I calculated it, M – times- 12 – divide by – D – times – 7.. still didn’t work out. When I questioned the agent, of course after I signed the lease.. All she could tell me was “the computer works it out”. I asked her to pull out her calculator and tell me which calculation works it out to be the weekly amount initially quoted.. She couldn’t.

And of course I couldn’t get on to the Rental Tenancy Help Line….. It would be great if they were better funded by the Government.

Anyway, with some maintenance requests not being attended to we decided moved… And the new place isn’t any better. We’re great tenants, waiting for our house to be built and we have to put up with rude Agent representatives…Who treat us like second class citizens because we’re renting….

I wonder, now there is a database for bad tenants, is there one for bad Agents???

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georgesgenitals12:14 pm 17 Mar 11

Property managers are an interesting beast – some do a great job, others are worse than useless. Once they start to get behind in resolving issues it’s generally time to ditch them.

If that stuff about LiveIn is for real, they don’t deserve to have a business at all. Thanks for the heads up – I’ll definitely be avoiding them when looking for new property managers for my Canberra units.

a lot is two words said :

I was one of the +1s above for LiveIn. Having had my tenants break the lease, smoke in the house, put dog hair throughout my property, leave the house filthy (not dirty, filthy) and countless other issues, I have to reverse my comments and say they have treated my property and me with complete disregard. They couldn’t care less that the tenants broke the lease and damaged the property, left a dirty mattress, ruined furnishings and the list goes on. Very disappointing as I also thought they were a breath of fresh air in a stale property management market. I guess it’s only up until something goes wrong or they don’t think they’re going to get any more business from you.

This is really interesting – I’ve had exactly the same sort of experience as this. As the owner of a rental property, I found LiveIn and Tamara Baxter to be really great at the start – around March 2010. Tamara was pleasant, efficient and mostly did as I asked. I was a bit miffed when she signed up a tenant without first showing me their application and letting me decide, but I trusted her judgment and anyhow the tenant was signed up, and I couldn’t change it.

Then I flagged with them some problems at my property in April (yes Erik – you know exactly who I am!) including evidence that the tenant was smoking at the property (after applying as a non-smoker) and the fact that his dog was trashing the beautifully landscaped back yard. The response from LiveIn and Tamara was “oh, that’s a shame” and no activity.

In May LiveIn performed a routine inspection of the property and it took me until July (and numerous requests by email and phone) to get a copy of it – everything was ticked as being OK and the property inspector (not Tamara or Erik) drew a little smiley face at the bottom. Sweet, I though, and left it at that.

Later in July I happened to be going past the property and had the opportunity to look into the back yard – the whole yard was completely trashed by the dog!!!

It took me until September to finally get hold of Tamara (it turns out that she and Erik were away having a fabulous overseas holiday for 3 months) and we did an inspection of the property together. The house reeked of cigarette smoke, was quite dirty, some things had been broken, and the back yard was destroyed.

Since September it’s been an ongoing struggle with LiveIn, with me having to monitor and drive the process of rectifying the problems, almost daily because otherwise – in my experience – Tamara disappears again for weeks. The tenant has finally been evicted (although we’re still trying to get him to actually leave) and a tribunal application has been made to recover costs for damages.

Last week I received an email from Tamara giving me 30 days’ notice of the termination of our agency agreement. As others have said before me – yet another example of LiveIn being great until something goes wrong or they don’t think they’re going to get any more business from you. Then they either disappear or bail out.

I don’t actually care that Tamara wants to end the management agreement; it’s probably a good outcome for us all, given my experience of them since September 2010. What I do want is that LiveIn make up for not acting in April, as they needed to after I flagged problems with them, by getting me successfully through the tribunal process and helping me recover costs for repairs – which, incidentally, amount to over $8k. The process is obviously going to take longer than the 30 days’ notice she’s given me – how convenient for Tamara, Erik and LiveIn.

a lot is two words said :

I was one of the +1s above for LiveIn. Having had my tenants break the lease, smoke in the house, put dog hair throughout my property, leave the house filthy (not dirty, filthy) and countless other issues, I have to reverse my comments and say they have treated my property and me with complete disregard. They couldn’t care less that the tenants broke the lease and damaged the property, left a dirty mattress, ruined furnishings and the list goes on. Very disappointing as I also thought they were a breath of fresh air in a stale property management market. I guess it’s only up until something goes wrong or they don’t think they’re going to get any more business from you.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Yet another reason to manage it yourself, or (dare I say) avoid investing in property in the first place.

a lot is two words4:59 pm 13 Oct 10

I was one of the +1s above for LiveIn. Having had my tenants break the lease, smoke in the house, put dog hair throughout my property, leave the house filthy (not dirty, filthy) and countless other issues, I have to reverse my comments and say they have treated my property and me with complete disregard. They couldn’t care less that the tenants broke the lease and damaged the property, left a dirty mattress, ruined furnishings and the list goes on. Very disappointing as I also thought they were a breath of fresh air in a stale property management market. I guess it’s only up until something goes wrong or they don’t think they’re going to get any more business from you.

CoffinRX2;

Firstly, I know for a fact that if you applied for a property a few years ago, you would have dealt exclusively with Tamara – and I know she would never, ever say that your application wasn’t forwarded to the owner.

For the purposes of this message, I would like to highlight the Anti Discrimination Act, and the grounds for which discrimination can be sought;

(a) sex;
(b) sexuality;
(c) gender identity;
(d) relationship status;
(e) status as a parent or carer;
(f) pregnancy;
(g) breastfeeding;
(h) race;
(i) religious or political conviction;
(j) disability;
(k) industrial activity;
(l) age;
(m) profession, trade, occupation or calling;

As an agency, we submit all applications to the owner, and they ultimately make their decision based on their preference for tenant. If an owner tells us not to accept an application based on any of the above points, we have an office policy to firstly inform the owner that they cannot discriminate, and if this does not work, we cease our relationship with that owner (which we have done in the past).

Secondly, when we submit applications to a landlord, we do thorough reference checks – this covers your previous rental properties, and also involves speaking with your previous property managers (or private landlords), as well as assessing your ability to pay the rent.

I don’t know your name, so I obviously can’t comment on the suitability of your application for the property – but I’m 100% positive that if you were rejected, you would have been rejected due to another application being stronger than yours, or negative feedback from your previous property manager. Generally when tenants are rejected for a property, it breeds resentment to the property manager, which is obviously what has happened with you. Most tenants are mature enough to understand that the rental market is competitive (such as with any market where demand outstrips supply), but some hold a grudge.

If you seriously believe that you were discriminated against, I would suggest you contact the Office of Fair Trading and lodge a formal complaint.

Then that would have the landlord acting in a discriminatory manner?

It’s ok, I recently just bought my own house and have my old housemates living with me paying me rent. … there were a couple of properties which Livein had while I was looking, and as a matter of principal I didnt even inspect them

….. Last time i remember, applicants are only meant to be assessed on their ability to care for the property and the ability to pay rent, .. so I do believe we were discriminated against.

CoffinRX2, The Landlord has the final say in any rental decision, unless the Landlord has told the Agent “rent it out to anyone, its just an investment property anyway”. When I rented out our property which is normally our primary residence, we had applicants who were smokers, dog owners and groups. The Agent asked my opinion, and I said, no,no and no. I am sure you can understand it is not descrimination, it is the decision of the property owner who usually has there investment at stake. I am sure you can also understand that if you were to own a pimped up valuable Mazda RX2 you wouldnt agree to “lend” it to a complete stranger, who wanted a change from their Hyundai Exel until they too could afford an RX2.

@CoffinRX2 in general group houses are some of the hardest tenants to manage. While this isn’t the case all the time, it is often enough to warrant a lot of landlords telling their agents to simply ignore groups. While I feel for you and it makes renting in Canberra difficult it is simply a sad fact you need to deal with. I won’t go into the multitude of issues that group houses present but suffice it to say that 8 out of 10 group houses cause nothing but issues.

Before you start trolling away, I’m well aware that there are bad tenants from all walks of life. My suggestion would be to get a partner and a public service badge then come back and watch the doors open for you.

Erik,

I applied to rent a place from your company a couple of years ago with two friends of mine. we were treated like scum from the leasing agent, and when we were declined a tenancy we were told that “we didnt forward your application to the landlord as you applied as a group house” ….. Last time i remember, applicants are only meant to be assessed on their ability to care for the property and the ability to pay rent, .. so I do believe we were discriminated against.

also 70mil in 4 years? .. wow, im pretty sure Independent Property would do that in a day on one of their apartment releases.

Ceej1973 said :

+1 from me to that Real Estate Manager that “features in City News”. Have had nothing but fast responces/maintenance actioned, from myself (Landlord) and the Tenant (yes we are in contact) when there has been an issue with our property.

My understanding of how weekly rent is calculated is as Erik and other Property Manager posters have written. All I did was ask!

As for bad Agents, I would advise to stay well clear of Richard Luton. Richard Luton himself is a useless Manager/Proprieter, and if you ever come across Carmen Hargreaves who used to Manage for him, then stear well clear of her too. Both said, had no time to action a major property issue (I being the Tenant)that I tried to have resolved over a 3 month period. Then when I took them to the Tenancy Tribunal, they didnt even bother turning up to the hearing. I have heard of 4 other stories from freinds who either worked with Carmel or rented with her and were extremely bad experiences with Richard Luton and the two forsaid Managers.

Something dodgy going on at Richard Lutton. We applied for a house and naturally are prepared to sign a lease and start paying rent sooner rather than later – yes that means for 1 week we will have double rent – the property manager found this difficult to grasp & seems to think we should give notice where we are before we even have a new place to live.

I have to thank everyone!!!

We also have had a number of problems with our current ‘property manager’ and ‘landlord’, and have decided to move. Their loss I guess. Today we got offered a property, beating out 8 other applications, which goes to prove we are great tenants!!

Coincidently enough, both our previous and current Agents, even though not owned by the same person, were from the same franchise. Red and white in Queanbeyan and the Gungahlin Agent were red and white and have changed over to the agency – First N****al…. and are ‘blue’, if you get my drift.

The problem I mentioned as the lead in for this discussion, was just the tip of the ice berg, in both properties. Currently our problems include:
– being mislead by our current property manager before leasing, as to where the ‘landlords’ daughter was going to live in our townhouse complex, once it was finished and tenants started to move in. She lives directly next to us, when we were told she wouldn’t. The manager even lied telling us she was very quiet and at Uni. Bulls*t!!!
– having problems with the daughter (and her 5 housemates) – with them smoking in the court yard which leaks into our home. We can’t open any windows and have to continually shut the house up, we can’t even leave our bedroom window open of a night/ continual parties every weekend/ being parked in by her friends, cigarette butts and rappers thrown over into our yard. When we’ve previously made a complaint an egg was thrown at our bedroom window. The Agent never returned our calls regarding this or any matter (maybe because we’ve had 4 property managers in the last 6 months). The smoking coming from the 10 plus friends she has over every weekend has gotten so bad we don’t let our 4 year old son play outside because he has asthma.
– access issues, one Saturday morning we received a call directly from the landlord asking if they could enter our property to install a lock (cheap sh*t). We were told for 6 months we wouldn’t be getting a lock instead a secruity door would be installed. Of course no one was home so we said no. The property manager, later that day, asked that if and when the ‘landlord’ decided to return and install the lock would we ‘deny’ access ‘again’. Of course we said no, if we were at home and were given adequate notice (we really needed the lock as the current lock was a door handle which our son could open with ease giving us no secruity). It only took them 9 months to install it.
– When applying for the property it was listed as 370 -400 per week. We put an offer in at 400. Within 7 months the rent was put up by $30. Apparently they can do that in Queanbeyan. And no it didn’t seem to be in line with other properties (most expensive by far), but the ‘landlord’s’ increasing expenses (like his new $70,000 car) was the reason the rent needed to increase. Ok, by the NSW Act (I double checked).

Again, this is just an outline of some of our key problems. We’ve tried speaking to the agents with no luck. Instead we get treated like second class citizens.
We’re made many complains about the problem with the ‘landlords’ daughter, even being approached by the ‘landlord’ while walking in the front door of our house to be told she wouldn’t be any problem in the future. SUPRISE – nothing’s changed.
We felt violated after being approached and slightly bullied. We approached the Agent, again with no luck. The Agent took and continues to take personal offence at everything, every time anything is mentioned,being extremely argumentative, so we don’t bother anymore. We don’t want to get into an argument or end up having any negative backlash that could affect us obtaining another property.
We are now counting down the days until we move, and hope the current ‘Agents/Property Managers’ and ‘landlord’ end up with a terrible tenant!!!

A database, similar to the one they keep on tenants, would be useful so this doesn’t happen to the next tenant!

+1 from me to that Real Estate Manager that “features in City News”. Have had nothing but fast responces/maintenance actioned, from myself (Landlord) and the Tenant (yes we are in contact) when there has been an issue with our property.

My understanding of how weekly rent is calculated is as Erik and other Property Manager posters have written. All I did was ask!

As for bad Agents, I would advise to stay well clear of Richard Luton. Richard Luton himself is a useless Manager/Proprieter, and if you ever come across Carmen Hargreaves who used to Manage for him, then stear well clear of her too. Both said, had no time to action a major property issue (I being the Tenant)that I tried to have resolved over a 3 month period. Then when I took them to the Tenancy Tribunal, they didnt even bother turning up to the hearing. I have heard of 4 other stories from freinds who either worked with Carmel or rented with her and were extremely bad experiences with Richard Luton and the two forsaid Managers.

Erik:
There are a few basic guidelines to RA that don’t show up in the FAQ.
1) Anonymity + Audience = Opportunity to be a dickhead
However, most users do not exercise this opportunity. Those that exercise it frequently are known as trolls.

2) Do not feed the trolls.
Trolls thrive on attention, but starving them of attention causes them to weaken or die. Dead trolls are rarely heard from again. Particularly aggressive trolls can get put into moderation.
Responding to the trolls gives them power.

3) Don’t judge all RiotACT participants and readership just because you had a bad experience once.
Not everyone who reads a thread values all responses equally, and certainly not every member responds on each thread. If a comment has value, people will read it and take it on board, and comments that a worth saying will be around for as long as the archives work or Google lets it be searched.

Your comments here today may pay off some time down the track, just be patient and don’t waste time on a shitfight.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

You should call the property manager and discuss what she has been telling other agents. Invite her again to inspect the premises and see that the issue has been dealt with.

Property managers are the lowest of the low in my book. They treat tennants like scum and do next to nothing for the owner.

Am assuming this is for me.

I’ve spoken to her and so has my husband. She becomes quite defensive and carries on how she cannot lie for us. As my husband pointed out we do not want or expect her to lie just to be 100% honest instead of the 50% honest she is being.

We have had previous appointments for her to re-inspect and she has managed to avoid this as we have stipulated from now on one of us insists on being home when she is coming through. Personally I think she is worried we will take this further, and don’t worry as soon as we move out I will be filling out all the complaint forms available.

**sigh**

I’m really quite surprised at the inherent negativity by members of this forum.

This was discussion on agencies – and numerous people have positive comments about my agency.

When the validity of these responses was questioned, I went to lengths to clearly put in writing that I did not have anything to do with those comments posted.

As the owner and licensee in charge of LIVEin, why would I open myself to action from the Office of Fair Trading – by 1. inducing someone to write make believe comments about my agency on a forum, and then 2. clearly state in writing that I did not have anything to do with said comments.

If I were to do above (ie act misleadingly and deceptively), and I clearly put in writing that I had nothing to do with it, I would be receiving a knock at the door from the OFT.

I want to apologise to those people who made positive comments about their experiences with LIVEin – it’s a shame that members of this forum chose to throw around baseless accusations, and try to degrade this discussion into a slandering match.

Regards,

Erik Tyler

colourful sydney racing identity4:02 pm 24 Mar 10

You should call the property manager and discuss what she has been telling other agents. Invite her again to inspect the premises and see that the issue has been dealt with.

Property managers are the lowest of the low in my book. They treat tennants like scum and do next to nothing for the owner.

And when I say ‘walk away from Maloney’s’ I mean that for tenants and landlords alike. They make both sides unhappy and things worse off for both…kind of like what Satan would do if he was the boss of a property management company.

all_stars said :

Not only we do get to hear their sex acts we also get to hear them fighting. The other night they were arguing over who was going to stab the other person first. Lovely.

Concealed camera. Live video feed. The Internet.

You join the dots.

Gungahlin Al said :

Buzz2600 said :

Real Estate agents continue to amaze me. They treat you like *hit unless you’re selling (then you’re a god because you’re paying them an large commission). They don’t seem to get the fact that you may be a renter or buyer today but you’re also potentially a client looking to sell property tomorrow. There are a bunch of agents I wouldn’t use if my life depended on it.

Agreed 100%. And we were ‘tenants from heaven’, who always left each rental in a better state than when we walked in.

For me that agent is Maloneys. Never. Again.

People still use Maloney’s? Holy crap!!!

Never ever, even if its your first time.

Just walk away.

Unless you’re a masochist who enjoys being bullied. Or enjoys hearing lies.

Here’s my 2 cents and I’m feeling better now that I came across this forum in my searching for problem property managers.

Our property manager does not want us to move, it seems a difficult place to lease. Lucky for her we moved from Sydney and had no idea what we were in for.

The townhouse we are in shares a common main bedroom wall with the neighbours who are there thanks to Government Housing. I adore being woken up between 2.30am – 4.00am hearing their bed banging on the bedroom wall. We enjoy this so much we’ve moved in to the spare room. But according to her you have to expect noise in townhouses. The first 6 months were fine, these are new neighbours – single mother, 2 kids and a brand new boyfriend she had known for 1 day before asking him to move in.

Not only we do get to hear their sex acts we also get to hear them fighting. The other night they were arguing over who was going to stab the other person first. Lovely.

Our property managers response, call the police. Yeah and watch next door get annoyed over that. They know when we’re home and when we’re out so I do not want to give them cause for retribution.

We are trying to move.

We had a routine inspection 2 weeks ago. It was pouring rain that day so the property manager has admitted in an email she could not inspect the front garden. Therefore she missed the overflowing bin of green waste and the pile on green waste waiting to go into the bin the following Tuesday. Clearly the front garden was a work in progress.

Every real estate that calls this woman is being told she wasn’t happy with the front garden, no mention of the above details and no mention of the fact it has since been cleared up by VIP Home Services and she hasn’t seen it due to not be able to keep her appointments for re-inspection.

I plead our case when we apply for new places but it seems this woman’s word is better than that of anyone else. Heaven forbid these real estates would ring previous landlord/agencies we rented with to get a cleared picture. What is the point of us giving them 10 years of information if they cannot be bothered to spend the 40 cents to make calls to see what we’re really like as tenants?!

If anyone has any ideas what to do please let me know, I am so close to packing everything and moving far far far away from Canberra.

I won’t name the real estate agent because I am sure they look for anything that defames them and I need to keep a roof over our heads as long as possible. I will say that they are in Tuggeranong and they are definitely not “the best”.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

ACTResident said :

The fact they’re one of the most successful property managing and marketing companies in the ACT without ever having spent a cent on advertising their business speaks for itself.

You know, that statement does little to convince me you are legit. You seem to have a VERY indepth knowledege of the company.

I suggest you adjust what you think “VERY indepth (assuming you actually mean in depth) knowledge of the company” means. The reason I say that is that Livin have a website where you can see for yourself their total sales amounts (successfulness) and in a casual chat to Erik when he was selling my house for me he happened to mention he’s never spent any money on advertising. That really isn’t in depth knowledge of the company.

My original comment was purely based on my experience with, and opinion of Livin.

Gungahlin Al11:30 am 24 Mar 10

Buzz2600 said :

Real Estate agents continue to amaze me. They treat you like *hit unless you’re selling (then you’re a god because you’re paying them an large commission). They don’t seem to get the fact that you may be a renter or buyer today but you’re also potentially a client looking to sell property tomorrow. There are a bunch of agents I wouldn’t use if my life depended on it.

Agreed 100%. And we were ‘tenants from heaven’, who always left each rental in a better state than when we walked in.

For me that agent is Maloneys. Never. Again.

merlin bodega10:43 am 24 Mar 10

Poor George – you missed the irony. Renters are regarded as second class without the rights and entitlements of the sacred home owner. Until that is reversed the system will continue to deliver bad outcomes and underpin the scum bags who give property management a bad name. All the $21000 FHB grant did was push up prices and put profits into the pockets of developers.

Thoroughly Smashed9:41 am 24 Mar 10

To be fair, the breathlessness of ACTResident’s comment came close to breaking my BS detector.

colourful sydney racing identity9:16 am 24 Mar 10

ACTResident said :

The fact they’re one of the most successful property managing and marketing companies in the ACT without ever having spent a cent on advertising their business speaks for itself.

You know, that statement does little to convince me you are legit. You seem to have a VERY indepth knowledege of the company.

prhhcd said :

ACTResident said :

The main reason I have always done my own property management (and managed Dad’s 5) is that the “typical” agents just want their percentage and don’t really care about either the landlord or the tenant. I have to say, when I buy another investment property, I’d be MORE than happy to let it be managed by Livein.

Erik sold a property for me recently too. AMAZING service, flat fee. I really don’t know why anyone would want to use any other company for managing real estate, whether buying, selling or property management. Erik and Tamara are a breath of fresh air to the industry and their competitors should take a few leaves out of their book or be prepared to lose business to them.

Nice one Livin – what a poor marketing ploy!! I recently (NOV 2009) TRIED to buy a house of you and gave up. You couldn’t even tell me the house and block size… Useless service. Seriously. I feel sorry for the vendors. If you want a decent real estate agent (for sale/purchase) go to Mark Humpherson at Blackshaws. Nice bloke, easy to deal with and actually sold me a house…… No idea about renting though. I do my own property management.

I’m certainly not going to enter into a debate on my sales abilities – I’ll just highlight the facts. Over $70,000,000 worth of residential sales in the past 4 years, including numerous record sales prices. To date I haven’t had a single client not satisfied with my service, and to date I’ve got over 150 testimonials attesting to my level of service for both buyers and sellers.

If you genuinely had a bad experience with me, I apologise – we’re all human, and it’s impossible to be 100%, for 100% of people (although I try!).

I hope you found a nice home.

Cheers

Erik

Hey Skid – of course I understand that, and it makes perfect sense. That’s the reason I wrote my response, and was exceptionally clear about it.

While I recognise that its quite possible that you’re legit, ACTResident and ErikTyler, most RiotACT readers have the healthy dose of cynicism common in online forums.
ie: We tend to call shenanigans when the stealth marketers invade, and also when we get more sinister instances, like the wu mao dang invasion whenever someone mentions the f-word.

I’m not accusing you of anything, just letting you know that we have our fair share of astroturfers, so we seem a bit jaded sometimes.

We run the calculation as follows;

Weekly rent x 52 then divided by 12 for monthly rent amount. This is standard across the industry here in Canberra.

ACTResident said :

The main reason I have always done my own property management (and managed Dad’s 5) is that the “typical” agents just want their percentage and don’t really care about either the landlord or the tenant. I have to say, when I buy another investment property, I’d be MORE than happy to let it be managed by Livein.

Erik sold a property for me recently too. AMAZING service, flat fee. I really don’t know why anyone would want to use any other company for managing real estate, whether buying, selling or property management. Erik and Tamara are a breath of fresh air to the industry and their competitors should take a few leaves out of their book or be prepared to lose business to them.

Nice one Livin – what a poor marketing ploy!! I recently (NOV 2009) TRIED to buy a house of you and gave up. You couldn’t even tell me the house and block size… Useless service. Seriously. I feel sorry for the vendors. If you want a decent real estate agent (for sale/purchase) go to Mark Humpherson at Blackshaws. Nice bloke, easy to deal with and actually sold me a house…… No idea about renting though. I do my own property management.

As for the original problem regarding calculating monthly rent from a weekly rental amount… My tenants pay me monthly because it suits both of us so to calculate $450 weekly rent into a monthly amount it’s done like this.

$450 divided by 7 = $64.28 daily (rounded down to the nearest cent).

$64.28 multiplied by 365 = $23,462.20 annually.

$23,462.20 divided by 12 = $1955.18 monthly (rounded down to the nearest cent).

Monthly rent is NOT calculated accurately by multplying the weekly rent by 52 and dividing by 12, as there is MORE than 52 weeks in a year. Even less accurate is dividing the monthly rent by 4 in order to compare to the weekly rate as there is more than 4 weeks in every month except February in a leap year. Two very common mistakes.

Although I do concede that an acutal explaination like the one I have provided should be provided to ALL tenants paying monthly.

So I’m not real because I haven’t posted much? The reasons I haven’t posted much are largely because of the sort of comments (such as the last few) that so frequently get posted to this site. I am a LONG TIME reader of the Riot Act, registered for over a year now but I choose to only post on things that mean something to me and not go off half cocked with outlandish assumptions as so many of the regulars seem to do. Which only ever degrades into a downward spiraling pointless “my keyboard is bigger than yours” argument from keyboard warriors such as yourselvs.

My comments about Livein are genuine, I am genuine and if people choose to pull the wool down over their own eyes when it comes to possitive feedback then so be it. It’s no loss to me and it’s no loss to Livein. The fact they’re one of the most successful property managing and marketing companies in the ACT without ever having spent a cent on advertising their business speaks for itself.

Hi El,

This is Erik from LIVEin.

I wanted to put this in writing so there is no ambiguity – the comment from ACT Resident is 100% legitimate. The comment was posted from a previous client, with no personal or financial involvement in LIVEin Real Estate.

This topic was bought to my attention yesterday, and I of course forwarded it to our database of existing clients – ACT Resident informed me of their post, to which I am extremely grateful, but in no way was it induced by myself, or anyone from my agency.

It’s fantastic that people are writing positive things about our agency; and in no way would I use this forum, or any forum, to try and deceive the public by posting false comments.

If there is any doubt, I would welcome you to email me directly at erik@livein.net.au, and I will ask the poster if they are comfortable with me revealing their information.

Cheers

Erik Tyler – Director, LIVEin

ACTResident said :

The main reason I have always done my own property management (and managed Dad’s 5) is that the “typical” agents just want their percentage and don’t really care about either the landlord or the tenant. I have to say, when I buy another investment property, I’d be MORE than happy to let it be managed by Livein.

Erik sold a property for me recently too. AMAZING service, flat fee. I really don’t know why anyone would want to use any other company for managing real estate, whether buying, selling or property management. Erik and Tamara are a breath of fresh air to the industry and their competitors should take a few leaves out of their book or be prepared to lose business to them.

Hi Erik, Hi Tamara!

Astroturfing of this nature is enough to turn me away from any business that decides to use it as a marketing tactic.

And just think, there were genuine positive comments from real people up until this point.

Thoroughly Smashed11:28 am 23 Mar 10

ACTResident said :

The main reason I have always done my own property management (and managed Dad’s 5) is that the “typical” agents just want their percentage and don’t really care about either the landlord or the tenant. I have to say, when I buy another investment property, I’d be MORE than happy to let it be managed by Livein.

Erik sold a property for me recently too. AMAZING service, flat fee. I really don’t know why anyone would want to use any other company for managing real estate, whether buying, selling or property management. Erik and Tamara are a breath of fresh air to the industry and their competitors should take a few leaves out of their book or be prepared to lose business to them.

I’ve already replaced my lawn with astroturf so I don’t need any more.

colourful sydney racing identity11:14 am 23 Mar 10

ACTResident said :

The main reason I have always done my own property management (and managed Dad’s 5) is that the “typical” agents just want their percentage and don’t really care about either the landlord or the tenant. I have to say, when I buy another investment property, I’d be MORE than happy to let it be managed by Livein.

Erik sold a property for me recently too. AMAZING service, flat fee. I really don’t know why anyone would want to use any other company for managing real estate, whether buying, selling or property management. Erik and Tamara are a breath of fresh air to the industry and their competitors should take a few leaves out of their book or be prepared to lose business to them.

Wow – a glowing business report by a ‘newbie’. Nice marketing attempt.

The main reason I have always done my own property management (and managed Dad’s 5) is that the “typical” agents just want their percentage and don’t really care about either the landlord or the tenant. I have to say, when I buy another investment property, I’d be MORE than happy to let it be managed by Livein.

Erik sold a property for me recently too. AMAZING service, flat fee. I really don’t know why anyone would want to use any other company for managing real estate, whether buying, selling or property management. Erik and Tamara are a breath of fresh air to the industry and their competitors should take a few leaves out of their book or be prepared to lose business to them.

georgesgenitals7:07 pm 22 Mar 10

merlin bodega said :

If I had my way renters would each get a $21,000 gift from the government to pay for their rent each time they moved to a new property.It seems entirely fair given that my taxes are being used to buy houses for anyone who wants one. The home buyers get to stay where they are for as long as they want whereas all the renters seem to be able to do is generate huge tax deductible rental losses for the robber baron landlords and go looking for new digs every twelve months so the agents can gouge a bit more from the investors. This system is rubbish!

Great idea! Imagine what rent prices will be then!

SolarPowered, reminds me of my sister’s story – on vacating, she was docked $50 off her bond because there was an insect in a light fitting.

colourful sydney racing identity4:12 pm 22 Mar 10

As a person who has had the misfortune to rent through Peter Blackshaw, I would urge people never to use them. They are unresponsive slugs.

As a previous renter I would highly recommend Karen Nash from Bryan Rumbles… I felt that any messages we had to relay through to the landlord were actioned promptly.

I believe that Karen managed to find the balance between landlord and tenant satisfaction. For the three years that we rented, we had the same property manager. That is a rarity.

SolarPowered10:33 pm 21 Mar 10

I’ve been a renter, seller and buyer. Being a renter sucks. They treat you like scum. On vacating, we were told to remove builders mortar from a corner of the garage window. Must have been there since the house was built. We had to go looking for it. But they had to get us on something.

Sorry to hear about your troubles BSDJDCT. Wish I had a dollar for every “dodgy property manager” story I’ve heard. It seems to come down to people getting paid low wages to manage far, far too many properties while the agency principals make a killing.

As for recommending property managers, I recommend DIY. I can’t believe that people actually pay a property manager up to 11% of the gross rent to manage a property – a task which basically consists of selecting tenants every twelve months, making sure they pay rent, and arranging for any required work to be done. I know it’s tax-deductible, but IMO it’s $1 spent to make 30 cents. The one exception would be if you have kids who were at college or university – pay them to manage the property. You get to pay their allowance tax-free and they get taught about negotiating with people and a little about investing.

Greyhaired 30yo2:41 pm 21 Mar 10

I also rent from LiveIn, and have found them to be the best of 6 agencies I’ve rented with (and even two I’ve worked for). We’ve had some problems with the owners of our rental property, but Tamara and staff have attempted to rectify the issues with minimal disruption and above average efficiency for a real estate agent.

There is an agency located in Queanbeyan (orange coloured advertising) who are woeful. Rude manager who never returned calls or emails until I cc’d the principal of the business, even then only made a show of actually doing anything. Eventually had to send a Notice to Remedy as we had substandard electrical circuits and a pre-existing monster rodent issue (which we ended up fixing ourselves)…amongst other problems.

It was a shame, at that time we were looking for an agent to sell a property. They did not get the sale – surprisingly.

a lot is two words11:37 am 21 Mar 10

Another +1 for Live In. I managed both of my properties myself for years after having woeful experiences with property managers in Canberra but have recently engaged Tamara. I’m so impressed with this company and their commitment to excellence.

Grail said :

Can I plug my favourite property manager here? Tamara Baxter from LiveIn has taken care of everything from my point of view as landlord, and my recently exited tenant had plenty of nice things to say. Being owner/manager, she’s not just doing this as a job to pay the bills.

+1 Although the place we rent is managed by Tamara’s crew. The few maintenance issues that have occured have been solved quite fast and all enquiries about rental conditions and the like have always been answered promptly and clearly.

merlin bodega9:37 pm 20 Mar 10

If I had my way renters would each get a $21,000 gift from the government to pay for their rent each time they moved to a new property.It seems entirely fair given that my taxes are being used to buy houses for anyone who wants one. The home buyers get to stay where they are for as long as they want whereas all the renters seem to be able to do is generate huge tax deductible rental losses for the robber baron landlords and go looking for new digs every twelve months so the agents can gouge a bit more from the investors. This system is rubbish!

ScrappyKat

I too had no training but got a certificate saying that I had my licence, three phones in front of me, it was very stressful for me also, started getting headaches, I lasted 18 months, I even had to go to doctors relating to stress, she informed me she had a few patients having the same problems with their jobs in real estate. The pay was lousy also for what we had to put up with, nothing was organised when I started work there, eveything was behind, work wise, and we had to wear that even though you just took over from somebody else’s mistakes.

I was a property manager many years ago as well, and only lasted about 6 months. Back then there was no courses to do, you learned everything on the job. If you had a good enough supervisor, things would go well. If not, you were the one in trouble. I had about 60 properties to look after at least, and if someone was away theirs too. I worked a few Saturdays with opening properties to lease out as well. Lunches I was on the phone while the receptionist had her lunch. I wanted her job, so much easier.

As a property manager I had to cop a load from the Owner of the agency on a weekly basis, his sons on a daily basis, I had good and really bad clients to take care of while at the same time trying to take care of the tennants and keep them happy. My take on things was that if my tennant was happy, they would take better care of the property. I only lasted 6 months because it was so stressful. Its no wonder there is such a high turnover of agents in the ACT.

Another +1 for Cameron. I rented through them and was so impressed that 10 years later we asked them to manage our property when we put it up for lease. Fantastic, friendly staff.

OpenYourMind said :

I remember being a renter and treated badly by certain agents. I always swore that I would sell a property using an agent that treated me well as a renter. For me, that was Cameron Real Estate in Hughes.

We also rented though Cameron and could not have better things to say about them. We rented on and off for almost a decade and found out very quickly that the smaller agencies treated renters and landlords better. The same was the case with buying and selling our first house (we ended up going with Dwyer Dunn in Kingston, another smaller agency).

Smaller agencies have to rely on relationships and word of marketing, as their marketing budgets do not extended to big fancy advertising campaigns. Smarter tactic on their behalf as it is easier to keep a satisfied customer (either as a tenant or buyer/seller) than it is to find a new one.

And keep persisting with the Rental Tenancy Helpline – we had to use them once when renting and when we finally got through to them they were fantastic.

Felix the Cat

Yes I do remember something like that,if you pay monthly you paid more, I too used to be a property manager, where I worked we managed properties, eg: maintence, inspections, court, evictions and also at times worked saturday mornings weekends we would do reception duties, I was expected to do end of month run as well as doing my own job, what a joke,we had a lot on our plate, I don’t know how some of these people who own real estate \
business’s ever manage, half of them only buy a business and haven’t got a clue, when I first started work, it was a bloody mess for me to clean up as they hadn’t had anyone in the position for about three weeks before I started, just hated the job.

It can be pretty damn frustrating on the other side of the transaction too. We’re trying to rent out our house at the moment. They’ve had two open houses so far this month, but immediately after each open house the property manager has fallen off the face of the planet. If we can’t contact her, I bet potential tenants can’t either. And then surprise! They sign a lease somewhere else. Would appreciate hearing stories that will restore my confidence in the profession of property manager.

OpenYourMind8:57 pm 19 Mar 10

I remember being a renter and treated badly by certain agents. I always swore that I would sell a property using an agent that treated me well as a renter. For me, that was Cameron Real Estate in Hughes. They are only small, but they’ve sold a number of houses for me and have always been professional and honest. As an example, they don’t do smarmy tricks to play off multiple buyers. As a seller, I probably got less than I could have, but it was a more ethical approach.

Felix the Cat8:19 pm 19 Mar 10

I own a rental property (not in Canberra), managed by a real estate agent or property manager or whatever fancy title you want to give them, and the rent received (paid to me monthly, not sure when the tenants actually pay it to the agent), varies from month to month. I queried this with the agent and they said this is because different months have different numbers of days in them.

Can I plug my favourite property manager here? Tamara Baxter from LiveIn has taken care of everything from my point of view as landlord, and my recently exited tenant had plenty of nice things to say. Being owner/manager, she’s not just doing this as a job to pay the bills.

All properties will have maintenance issues. When you’re renting, it’s a case of pestering the agent to take care of stuff. When you’re living in your own place, it’s a matter of pestering the other half to take care of stuff.

As a tenant, I was always asking property managers three times what I’d be paying for rent – once before I looked at the property, once as I was looking, and once before I signed the tenancy agreement. I made sure to ask not just what the “weekly rent” was, but how much they expected me to pay on what period. The conversion from weekly rent to monthly really taxes some folks, and a couple of unscrupulous people have really left a bad taste in my mouth. I have an innate distrust for agents who advertise based on “weekly rent” but then expect you to pay on a fixed date of each calendar month.

And yes, I have a vacant apartment to let.

Monthly rent – Weekly Rent x 4.3.

troll-sniffer2:04 pm 19 Mar 10

Well well well opportune time to notice this:

In my City News that I just picked up and riffled through, an ad for a major RE agent in the area is advising me that they’ve been managing residential property for over ten years, have professional property managers (woo-hoo) they know the market and the legislation and they know people to boot. They assert that they manage homes competently to ensure their clients’ investments perform at full potential.

So there ya go, not a word about the meat at the end of the rental stick, the tenants.

But look on the bright side, if you point out to your mob that this other mob can manage homes competently then perhaps your mob will try and compete with this mob. Unless your mob IS this mob in which case you’re stuffed mate. (page 32 of City News for those who have a copy)

So what exactly is the calculation you used?

If you multiply the monthly amount by 12, and then divide that figure by 52.177, you should be pretty close to the quoted weekly amount, give or take a few cents.

Holden Caulfield said :

Haha, “computer says no!”

Hahahahahahahaha

Why did you sign the lease, which is a legal document without understanding something as simple as the rent being different than what was offered?

Also I’d advise never to rent through the Home Loan centre

I recall being able to complain to the REIACT about unprofessional conduct of a property manager a few years back, but I can’t see anything about that on their website now. What you’re talking about seems more like laziness and potential incompetence than unprofessional conduct, so they may not be interested anyway.

At any rate, if you pay your rent fortnightly, which should be an option, make sure you pay the correct weekly amount regardless of what the lease says about monthly rent. If they’ve used fox’s formula it should work out the same anyway.

I suggested to allhomes that they set up a user reviewing system for agents like ebay does, but I think they’d be too scared of losing their advertising $$$…

Anyway, REIACT do have a reward for excellence, so you can nominate good agents, even if there’s nowhere to shame the bad ones.

Holden Caulfield11:00 am 19 Mar 10

Haha, “computer says no!”

While renting we had many issues with LJ Hooker in Gungahlin… rude rental staff and outrageous terms such as surprise inspections and drive bys… we used the Tribunal quite a lot and can’t speak highly enough of them.. keep trying to get a hold of them.. their hours are difficult but it’s well worth your time!

It’s funny now that the same agency is trying desperately to engage us as clients to sell our house… not likely!!

In the ACT property managers are required to complete a Real Estate Registration, which involves completing a 7 week course. Real Estate Agents must complete it before entering into a sale contract, and property managers are required to take it as soon as practicable after starting their job.

http://www.wisdomlearning.com.au/courses/coursedetail.cfm?id=938

Normally, agencies start new property managers on cases immediately and wait for the next round of training to begin before enrolling them. In my case it was a “wait and see” situation whereby the agency’s accountant wanted to make sure I was worth spending the course fees on before enrolling me.

Property managers have a high level of turnover because some get bored, and others move into sales (more moolah). Those that don’t complete/finish the course generally give the career a bad rep.

Actually profession you’re talking about is property manager, not real estate agent.

There is a subtle but important difference.

Real estate agents buy and sell property on your behalf, and in the ACT have to be licenced and can be subject to harsh penalties (including jail time) for breach of certain codes of conduct.

Property managers mangage the rental and in many cases the maintenence of an investors proporty portfolio and have no such licencing requirements (hence the wildly varying experience renters have with them).

troll-sniffer9:59 am 19 Mar 10

Well, two sides to every story, every estate agent would have a litany of stories of crap tenants, but that is still no excuse for treating good ones poorly.

I assume you are dealing with a reasonably sized enterprise, one with a dealer principal (whatever they’re called) who owns the business? The one who relies on reputation to further his business? I would find out who this head honcho is and demand a meeting to resolve what you believe are legitimate issues of how his or her agency treat clients.

You might find the tail of the dog doing some less obstreperous wagging affter that. If not then post back here with the name of the agency and any non-libellous information you have as to their business paractices.

When I was a property manager (heaven forgive me), we worked out rent like this:

Weekly rent / 7 x 365 / 12

So if your rent is $375p/w it would actually be $1629.46 every month ($53.57 per day, $19553.57 per year)

I’m not sure about a database for bad agents, but word of mouth certainly makes a mark.

It’d be a long list, if there was such a thing. I rented privately for over 10 years including a couple of years in the ACT, and no agents were what I would call ‘great’. Their ‘allegiance’ is never with the tenant but is always with the owner, as that’s where their money comes from – and it appears their ideal situation is to do as little as possible while raking in the property management moolah (which I understand costs the owners a pretty penny).

Doesn’t seem to matter whether you are a good tenant or not.

Real Estate agents continue to amaze me. They treat you like *hit unless you’re selling (then you’re a god because you’re paying them an large commission). They don’t seem to get the fact that you may be a renter or buyer today but you’re also potentially a client looking to sell property tomorrow. There are a bunch of agents I wouldn’t use if my life depended on it. I’d certainly find a bad agent database useful …. but it would never get off the ground, you’d be sued before the day is out! Anyway, with the squeeze on rental properties, I doubt agents will improve any time soon.

I’m a landlord and I can tell you this: My tenants tell me all the time how bad it is with Agents. Yours doesn’t seem that bad. At least you’re not getting late night visits. My advice – rent privately. Its better. You get nice landlords like me. Sorry, I have nothing empty right now though.
When you buy the canberra times tomorrow, start from the back or look at allhomes.

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