Should tenants rent from a property manager?
Should tenants rent from a property manager?
When we are talking to people about our service as a rental property manager we hear landlords comment that it is expensive to hire a property manager. Hiring any professional has costs associated with it. It is the same for hiring a lawyer, accountant or any other services based profession.
The three reasons we suggest landlords hire a property manager are knowledge, time and emotion. A licensed property manager should provide knowledge of the laws and regulations a landlord is required to follow. By hiring a property manager you are freeing up your time to do other things while your investment property is attended to. The last one is emotion. We find when landlords get involved with their properties we manage, they bring a level of emotion to the decision making process that can affect the tenancy negatively.
The fourth factor we are hearing more of lately is, more tenants are choosing to rent from property managers instead of directly from the landlords. Let me say that differently.
Quality tenants are choosing to rent from property managers, not directly from landlords.
As a property manager we often advise clients when they hire us, less people call us to view your property. They are surprised by this and when we expalin it is a positive thing, meaning the people who are not calling us are the tenants you do not want.
A tenant who chooses not to rent from a property manager is looking for that landlord who maybe doesn’t know the laws as well as the licensed property manager and they can manipulate them during the tenancy. These are called professional tenants.
Landlords are not the only ones having bad experiences in renting properties.
We are hearing more at our showings that tenants have had bad experiences renting directly from the landlord and want a professional involved to eliminate the landlord taking advantage of them. Tenants report stories of landlords trying to take advantage of the tenant during a tenancy by enforcing agreed to rules or not repairing items they are responsible to repair and blaming the tenants for damage they didn’t cause.
Although if a tenant feels their landlord is not following the rules and at any time can file a claim with RTB to rectify many issues, many feel when dealing with the landlord directly this will reflect negativley on the tenancy.
A licensed property manager must adhere to the laws in BC when providing service to their clients. The governing body describes it as licensed individuals must take “lawful direction” or they must not work for the client. If they continue taking unlawful direction they may be subject to discipline procedures from the governing body BCFSA.
When a client contacts us and requests we move the current tenant out of the property so they can choose a new tenant at the higher rental rates, we must say we can’t do this.
There is no legitimate reason to vacate the tenant at that time under the current laws.
We see many individual landlords try to circumvent laws to evict tenants for this and other situations and end up in the RTB losing a case.
The above reason and many others are why we are hearing more tenants only wanting to rent from a property management company. The advantage to the tenants is there is a governing body BCFSA, that if the property manager does something against the law the tenants are able to register a complaint against the licensee for their actions. This creates an additional level of professionalism in the industry to protect the tenants rights.
Unfortunately like any profession there are different levels of professionalism in the market place. We still hear and see stories of issues where property managers are doing things that are clearly a violation of the tenants rights. Sometimes it says it right on their websites.
We encourage all landlords and tenants to review the property managers work in the market place. If a tenant is looking for a place to rent and the market place identifies the landlord as a person who isn’t following the rules, regulations or meeting their requirements, tenants wil avoid the property. Let me say that differently again, quality tenants will avoid those properties, landlords or management companies.
The common denominator here is “quality tenants”. Most of the bad stories we read are the ones who are self managed and landlords are not following the laws and then disappointed they end up with a negative experience. Sometimes our clients try to advertise their unit at the same time as us and they receive more leads, but when they turn them over to us to follow up the person loses interest. The reason here is they don’t want to rent from a property manager. They want to rent from the landlord because they know they can manipulate the landlord more than a property manager.
If you want quality tenants attracted to your property, hire a professional.
Need help managing your investment properties. Cartref Properties can assist you, call today to discuss your needs. You can find more information about us at: www.cartrefproperties.com
