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Property management officers are a “lawyer’s heaven”, as most principals focus purely on sales and have no accountability for compliance with their rental department, according to a leading property management trainer.
The comment followed industry professionals saying there are major gaps in privacy compliance that are plaguing the PM industry.
Leading Property Managers of Australia (LPMA) director Darren Hunter said it is not going to take much for litigation to occur when the property management department are negligent – simply through the lack of focus and accountability from principals.
“We have got salespeople who love sales and then become principals and they typically, through need, have to start a rental department – they don’t really understand it, put in a property manager and hope for the best,” he told Residential Property Manager.
“That is the general state of our industry over all – more than 50 per cent.”
Mr Hunter said specialised property management departments are increasing twofold, showing a trend that is starting to occur.
“They are the ones that tend to do better and in investor circles they are the ones being recognised through investor talk as the people to go to,” he said.
“The investors themselves are starting to become more savvy, and saying amongst themselves ‘If you want a quality property manager you are best going to an agency that specialises in it’.
“They too are realising you don’t go to a company where it is actually run by a person who only understands sales.
“They also recognise higher staff turnovers in that type of industry, and though they may get cheaper fees, the savvy investor is waking up and realising it is better to have the peace of mind and quality service and pay that little bit extra,” he added.
Mr Hunter said principals should be cautious because they could lose their best property managers.
“For the principal who doesn’t wish to really focus on doing well in property management, they will end up having a situation where good property managers are now waking up and saying ‘I don’t want to work for a boss anymore that puts property management second best; I want to at least work with a boss who just focuses on property management or sees property management as just as important as sales’,” he said.
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