Top 12 things Property Agents / PM's in Akld have got wrong

[bookwriter4u]

Top 12 things Property Agents / Property Managers in Auckland have got it wrong





Property Agents or Property Managers in Auckland are busy people. We empathize with amount of work one Property Agent has to do from putting advertisement on the internet, view different properties, co-ordinate with seller and buyer, negotiate, draw the contracts, close deals, maintain properties, etc.




However nothing really prepares your Customer for this kind of behavior and attitude which most Property Agents in Auckland have.








1. No Greeting: Property Management and Property Agents treat their customer worse than Fast Food Restaurant Customers. At least in Fast Food Restaurant the Customer Service Executive would greet warmly and wait patiently until the Customer decides on Food. Simple etiquette of How are you ? Nice to meet you ? Is too much to ask for from the Property Agents.

2. What's in a Name ? : They do not remember your names as long as they remember theirs it is enough. Customer wonders "If you can't remember my name why are you even bothered to show me the property.

3. Viewing with several clients : We understand the property needs to be viewed by several people and for Property Agent it is a good solution. The question remains is whether you have asked Customer whether they are ok with Open Houses or not. Some Customers find it intimidating and as an agent you might be missing out on golden opportunity of building one on one connection and trust during the first few meetings.

4.Open Houses for 10 Minutes: Yes, we understand to save time and money it is better to show property at once but what is with 10 minutes on weekday. Have you even considered that you might be missing out on a potential customer who would love to do business with you if you understand the m better.







5.Hurried Conversation : Now how much one can talk to someone in 10 minutes with 4 - 5 different customers . It is already lots for Customers to take in with the new property and have several questions. Even before agent have known their name, personal situation , issues and preferences Customer is informed about the next Customer waiting in line . Potential Customers are handed forms and ask to leave premises.Spend some time to get to know your Customer whether they are first time buyers or first time renters.

6. No Mention about who owns the Property: Yes, as customer we want to know who owns the property, whom are we going to sign Contract with? Not because Customer want to avoid you and not pay for your commission but to know that you are genuine and information given by you is genuine. Not necessarily you give name or number of owner but you can always talk to customer about the owner.

7. Do not inform what is the procedure : As a Property Agent , you have not informed apart from giving form and how much money customer is supposed to give any further details on what is going to happen, when going to happen. What will happen when the customer moves in, what are the things he / she is supposed to do with their electricity, gas, water, etc . Whether the property has electricity or gas? Who is providing those services, what are the numbers to contact them. Make an attempt to know about customer and help him /her to envision living in the property
8. Poorly writt and confusing forms:The Forms from Property Agent Companies or Property Management Companies have insufficient information. It doesn't have information about property. Sometimes e-mail to contact is wrong on it. Sometimes Form lists wrong numbers of documents needed. If you are asking for Financial Documents be specific and also ensure that it is safe. What happens with Financial details? Yes, it might seem strange request to fill up form with Customer but ultimately you are requesting this information.


9. Bad Memory : As an agent if you have showed Customer property then you should remember it. If you can not remember it then write it down. Do not expect customer to remember it. Just as you have many prospective buyers or renters to manager. Customer is also looking at several property but you as a Property Manager is responsible for that property who walks in and out of the Property.



10. No Follow up : How many times agents have missed the deals because you have not answered an e-mail or voicemail? Do not list a property on trademe.co.nz or other websites if it is rented or sold already. If you are claiming the property is gone then do not keep for another 1 week. It makes you look dishonest and you loose respect.


11. Unrealistic Deadlines: If you had an Open house onsay for instance Friday, do not expect everyone to submit the Forms on same day by 4 pm. It isn't possible for Customer to have all the documents or might want to Sleep over their decision. Give them enough time but not too much.


12. No After Sales Support :Yes, you do not want customer to come backforevery minor problem but every customer expects good Sales support. If you have not done your work shoddily in the beginning there would be less hassle after wards. Always ask before you leave whether you can do anything else for your customers.

[Keys]

If you're going to criticize, then do so. This looks like a cut and paste from somewhere where English is the second language. Therefore, knowledge of how the NZ property market works may be minimal.

[bookwriter4u]

@ Keys : Thanks for commenting.

Firstly It is constructive criticism. If you think it isn't clear then I will be glad to carry on.

I haven't copy pasted, I have written it I am glad that you think it is worth cut and paste from somewhere. I have it on my blog as well but ofcourse I can't post the link.

Well in terms of Second language, I am not here to prove my language skills or abilities.Let other well known organizations do that unless you are planning to give me free grammar lessons .I will save that argument.

I never said I was an expert in property but I know when things aren't right.Even 10 year old can know when they aren't treated well.

I am not judging you and saying well you are from Christchurch what do you know about Auckland ? I never said I knew everything about NZ Property market and nobody would know everything. If there are phony experts on subject who think they know everything. Learning is a continuous thing.

I am surprised that you are able to make out it is cut and paste, English is Second language but you have completely ignored the point of OP.

An ignorant behavior in this globalized economy wouldn't take one very far.

Stick to topic,let's talk about shoddy service by property agents.

Please enlighten me or if there is any explanation to such kind of ignorant behavior and attitude.

[Keys]

Dear tenant:

Please don't ask if your small dog is allowed if the advertisement says no dogs.

Please don't abuse me if I say no to your golden lab - bull mastiff crossbreed.

Please don't bother asking for a viewing before you drive by and ascertain of the area/home is what you are looking for.

Please don't use text speech when you are sending me messages. Modern phones will accept a book of text to send.

Please don't turn up for a viewing with no positive identification. Drivers license, passport.

Please don't drink heavily before a viewing. Smelling alcohol on you early in the morning is not a good impression.

The please do's.

Do turn up for an appointment viewing.
Do have proof of current address.
Do have proof of identity.
Do look at me when we converse.
Do dress tidily.
Do have a shower/bath at least 2 days prior to the appointment.
Do be prepared to pay 6 weeks rent up front if you are offered the tenancy.

To reply to your 12 points in order:

1- No greeting. From your points further down it seems there are many at the open days. Hi, how are you, take at least a minute to say and receive comment on. Multiply that by (say) five and you've blown 5 minutes in your 10 minute open home.

2- Your name. Possibly a rude issue, however, again. Since there are many at the open home, the time taken to memorize names is valuable.

3- Viewing with several "clients" building relationships and trust over several meetings. Hello? There is one meeting, one application, one chance for you "the client" to impress. Let's imagine that you now rent the property. How many separate visits would you like me to make to take people through individually?

4- Short open homes. Agreed.

5- Hurried conversation. As a result of short homes. Agreed.

6- Who owns the property? Simply put. None of your business. The owner chooses to reveal that, not me.

7- Procedure. No point until the "customer" is formally offered the rental.

8- Poorly writt and confusing forms. Yes, taking the piss out of your posting deliberately here. The forms you complain about are forms I can not comment on as I haven't seen them.

9- Bad memory. Agreed. I have one and don't care a shite about anybody who is not shortlisted or a current tenant. Those who apply self select with their application forms and drift by the wayside. Maybe you need to look at the applications which you have filled out to impress.

10- No follow up. If I miss one call out of three dozen. Kill me. I missed it. There are many more suitable tenants (talking Auckland here) ready and willing to move in.

11- Unrealistic deadlines. Now that's a laugh. You, the "customer" want me to wait around while you sleep on it? Time is money. This is not an industry where the seller is disposing of a physical item. They are selling time.

12- After sales support. Surely this is for retail?


Check the time of the posting I've just made. I'm bored at the moment.

[Perry]

Take Care

Attention to detail is important. Same goes for spelling,
grammar and punctuation. It may be less critical for
some, but it reflects the degree of 'professionalism'
brought to bear by any alleged professional. Or any
of their critics.

Be wary, bookwriter4u. While the PT forums are gen-
erally a welcoming place, you are among people who
have - shall I say - 'been around.'

Why did Keys suspect cut and paste? Because your
post looked and felt just like that's what it was. Look
carefully at your first post. Random spacing should be
the first thing that attracts your attention. Tidy here,
tidy there, tidy most everywhere.

And - if I read your response correctly - you have
indeed copy and pasted your post contents from
your blog, with little-to-no attention paid to formatting.

Would a tenant be able to follow a form you created
in a way that resembled your post? I suspect not.
There are so many language errors in it, that any
tenant prospect may simply give up & 'walk away.'
Here's a very small selection:

* There is no buyer and seller involved in renting.
* There is no such word in English as "backforevery."
* Energy or telecommunications supply are between
...the tenant and the supplier. Not the PM.

Accusing other forumites of "ignorant behaviour and
attitude" is imprudent, to say the least. Especially
when you are new here, and have little idea about
the calibre, experience and nature of long-standing
forum members.

Reflect thoughtfully before making another post.
Genuine requests for assistance are usually treated
in a sympathetic and helpful way, especially when
phrased in appropriate terms.

[bookwriter4u]

Sorry but it is waste of time.

Perry: I am sorry I didn't see a sticky on your rules saying that grammar and well edited post are needed. I am not going to sit and edit every word I am going to write unless I am getting paid for it.I think it is bit of nit picky.

* There is no buyer and seller involved in renting.
Good to know that. You meant Tenant and Landlord.

* There is no such word in English as "backforevery."
Honest to God, can't find that except in your post. I am sure my Ctrl +F works fine.

* Energy or telecommunications supply are between
...the tenant and the supplier. Not the PM.
Yes, it is but you forget that it is PM knows more about the property then new Tenant.
Customer thinks " It is your Property and YOU are Manager.Hopefully you are managing it."

Apart from above 2 things nothing about property talk.

I really thought this was property forum not an English Learning language forum. I still think anyone who makes it an issue about grammar, language,etc isn't interested in communicating or learning anything new about the subject in this case "Property".
Perry: I do see your point of view or keeping all your information up to date and nice.

I am not surprised with the professionalism you are talking about when obviously most of the Property Manager do not show it. I would judge someone not by how good their posts are well written but how good that person or easy it is to deal with.

It is also imprudent to judge someone based on their post, language abilities or how the post is written. Too early to judge on someone's NZ property knowledge as well. Don't you think.
I am sure you would support Keys and you are allowed to do that. I am sure he is one of your Fanatic here. I wasn't the one who started making judgement on Keys. It isn't an appropriate behavior considering he is veteran here.

Keys: Thank you for your post. Much appreciated to write down all your expectations.If you have bothered to write all of this. That means you clearly didn't have trouble understanding or reading my so called Second language, badly edited cut and paste, not having enough NZ property knowledge post. If you have replied it and agreed to lots of it that I am not too far away from NZ property is heading to. You might want to educate this and put it where people can see it and understand it.Maybe you should fill up that gap. Cheers!

You are interested in one deal. You aren't interested in getting any repeat clients.You clearly don't care from your last post I can see . I am sure you are happy with what you are doing and earning heaps of money by your way of doing things. If you are still healthy , living best of your life and sleeping at night soundly then all is good.

Personal opinion: However I maintain that it is very selfish ,ignorant behavior and bad attitude on the side of Property Agent / Manager. ( Note: Perry this isn't personal, I was here to learn,teach and interact).I am sorry I am wasting my time as I am not getting paid to give anyone suggestion or appreciation for same. Truth hurts and nobody wants to know.
So I think I have wasted enough of MY time for people who can't bother to remember names and introduce themselves properly but are more interested in getting MY commission.

[Keys]

If you feel that you are wasting you time then that is sad. There is much to learn here and to personally improve yourself. Take some of your valuable time and search the Tenant Stuff forum. It may take some days but you would learn what landlords think. Having learned that, you could modify your behavior to advance your chances of winning in the tenancy race. Face facts. We have something you want (accommodation). It may not be fair. It may not be nice. It is, however, the fact. We choose.

Until there is a scarcity of tenants we will continue to choose.

What is this "MY commission" you talk about. Are you a vendor?

[muppet]

* There is no such word in English as "backforevery."
Honest to God, can't find that except in your post. I am sure my Ctrl +F works fine.

Try Number 12.

[Re@der]

bookwriter4u
Customer service tends to be market related. If it is valued by the customer and the return is there you get it. eg. renting a high value Parnell place you are likely to get a better level of service.
No doubt these high pressured PMs that you are dealing with have not had their tactics reflect on their business so have no need to change their behaviour and their production line techniques are the most efficient way to run their business. If you disagree do not do business with them and if enough others agree they will learn their lesson.
Personally I believe that there is a place for some civility and although I am not a PM apart from my own rentals I cannot understand how the ten minute viewing works with multiple customers., However I do use 1 hour open homes and think that ten minutes is more than enough time to review most multi unit apartments but extensive questioning of the PM will have to be done when there are not queues of potential tenants waiting to see the place. Potential tenants often ask me if they can see the place individually and I usually reply that if I dont find someone suitable in the open home I will ring them back and arrange it. (Open homes are really just the most efficient way of doing this task.)

[Perry]

Sorry but it is waste of time II

Perry: I am sorry I didn't see a sticky on your rules saying that grammar and well edited post are needed.
I am not going to sit and edit every word I am going to write unless I am getting paid for it. I think it is bit
of nit picky.

That's your view.

Remove the board from your own eye, before complaining
about the splinter in others, seems apposite.

I'll take Keys' comments a step further and agree with you:
you are indeed wasting your time, here.

As Keys observed, there is a treasure trove of valuable
information on these forums, if you will make the effort
to seek it out.

You may even be surprised at the number of times tenants
come to these forums and get a great deal of assistance in
dealing with bad PIs or bad LLs. But learning often requires
a little humility of attitude.

[kyotolaw]

As someone who has both let and rented, I think that someone who is paying say 20,000 in rent a year is a pretty important customer. In most businesses, you want to look after someone who is contributing that much in sales each year.

Landlords who use property managers who don't spend the time on letting the property correctly are doing themselves a disservice. I guess it either speaks to the need to raise the amount that landlords pay managers so they can afford to spend time in this area, or for the need for landlords to put more of a sales mentality into their thinking.

I have seen the attitudes that bookwriter4u talks about when looking at properties to rent for myself, and it certainly puts you off a property if it looks like you are going to struggle to get the attention of the agent down the road when you need them. Rushed showings, surly attitudes, and mysterious processes at the letting stage certainly contribute to less interest in a property.

[Re@der]

Kyoyolaw
Tell us about the lettimg process for you or your property manager. i am always keen to learn.

[kyotolaw]

Re@der - I'm no longer a landlord, but when I was I managed it myself. I got a photo ID, did a credit check, had the potential tenant answer a fairly invasive form, provide a reference which was checked and then usually made a choice on gut feeling after those hurdles were cleared.

I don't have criticism of process, as much as attitude. The landlord should be looking at the tenants as customers. As long as the customer is paying on time and not damaging the goods they are borrowing, they should be treated as your most valued assets. If you hire a property manager who thinks of tenants as timesucking parasites and treats them as such, you are getting someone in your business who is treating your customers poorly. And if you think of your rental portfolio as a business, why would you do that?

I've rented in the higher end of the market before, and I've come across some pretty surly rental agents - if I'm spending $50,000 with you over the next year, I want to be treated well and as though I'm important as a customer.

I think its a classic agency problem - for the PMs the customer is the landlord, but for the landlord, the customer is the tenant. There has to be a way to incentivise the PM to treat the tenants well, but for the PMs, its all about maximising the number of properties you look after and minimising the time spent on each one. I don't know what the answer is, but some landlords businesses are impacted by the PMs they choose to manage them.

[Perry]

There's no doubt that the tenant is a customer and
should be treated as such. When one hands off the
task of property management, how does a PI get to
'check' on the PM and the potential impact that a bad
one might have on a PI's business?

It's one of the reasons I favour self-management. No
one else to blame but me. Look through other threads
here on PT: Jericho, Rentsure, FlatFee - the list keeps
slowly growing.

There's also a thread on PM expectations (somewhere).

No matter how harsh this may seem, every time a so-
called ‘professional’ is engaged, there is a risk. I suspect
that most kiwis are DIY buffs for a very good reason.
The usual one being some debacle at the hands of one
self-styled ‘expert,’ or other.

And I don't think more laws and regulations will change
that for the better. Just for the costlier.

[zchick]

Between Keys & Perry, you guys crack me up!
Thank you, I needed you comments Keys. Incredibly insightful for the tenants if only they would read your list before turning up. It would save PM all a hell of a lot of time.

To the person that's unhappy with Perry's "education" Too bad for you, I agree with Perry. We don't all have the advantage of education but provided we read some more of Perry's post we may have some of his rub off on us.