What To Say & What To Send In Property Management

03 The Secret Link Between Outgoing and Ingoing Inspections

• Lee Woodward

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What do property managers really need to succeed? After calling nearly every registrant for the upcoming Complete Property Management Day, we've uncovered the most pressing challenges facing professionals across Australia and New Zealand. This deep dive into the modern property management landscape reveals surprising insights about what matters most.

Managing challenging conversations tops the list of concerns, particularly when dealing with combative landlords. The days of confrontational approaches are over - successful property managers now focus on understanding client perspectives while protecting staff wellbeing. As one principal shared, they willingly gave away 30 managements last year rather than subject their property managers to toxic client relationships. This philosophy that "not all business is good business" represents a fundamental shift in how agencies approach client retention.

Structure for growth emerged as another crucial focus, with "new business is everyone's business" becoming the mantra of thriving agencies. Property managers are constantly demonstrating their value through everyday service delivery - essentially pitching without pitching. We explore how understanding what was promised during business development helps property managers deliver consistently, creating alignment that builds trust and drives organic growth.

The podcast concludes with practical guidance on perfecting the property turnover process - revealing the critical link between outgoing and ingoing inspections. This step-by-step approach includes inviting vacating tenants to final inspections, clearly documenting findings, maintaining communication throughout, and giving tenants options regarding repairs and bond returns. We also discuss the growing trend of offering professional cleaning and maintenance services to departing tenants, potentially saving them money while ensuring properties meet standards for incoming tenants. Whether you're managing five properties or five thousand, these insights will transform how you approach your daily operations and build a more sustainable business.



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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to the podcast what to Say and what to Send in Property Management. My name's Lee Woodward and joining me again this week is Mr Nathan Pansini. Nathan, welcome back. G'day, lee, great to be here. Nathan. Time of recording. We're in all our preparation and research and presentation building for the Complete Property management day and, as part of that, everyone who registered you've called 99% of all those people to find out what they wanted to get out of the day, which became a very interesting research on the property management sector and what's going on out there For our national property management audience and New Zealand. What did you find people needed most help with?

Speaker 2:

Look, there was a couple of main storylines, if you like, of what people are after out there. So managing challenging conversations was a big one that came up. So quite often there we have those conversations. We don't know how to handle them. So we've got that Best way to communicate was one how to handle combative landlords. Take me into that. That's massive, because quite often what we do is we drop our left shoulder and we literally, metaphorically run at the landlord, and that's something that in the new, the modern property management world we don't want to do. That we want to make sure that we get an understanding of the landlord and why we're having this combative conversation at the time. What went wrong, how do I fix it? How can I help you better next time? These types of conversations need to come up in this process.

Speaker 1:

And also, not all business is good. Business came out of that where, okay, we're never going to be able to make that person understand or respect the staff that we have, and we'd rather lose the landlord than the staff member. Exactly, and we'd rather lose the landlord than the staff member.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. I had a conversation with a principal during this process who said exactly that, who had given away 30 managements that previous year because of that reason, because he didn't want the property manager going home crying.

Speaker 1:

What else did our property managers need to learn?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, structure for growth was an interesting one, and this is something that you and I've discussed at length over the last few weeks, because new business is everyone's business. So one of the things that we will talk about on the PM day is exactly that is, to have the conversation with a landlord as a PM, but you're not necessarily pitching. But I guess, as you and I've discussed, we're pitching all the time because, as we're doing our job, we're demonstrating every single day how good we are as a property management team, so we're always, always pitching for new business.

Speaker 1:

And one thing I really loved that came out of those conversations is we built the new leave behind for the BDMs and people will modify that, but it gave them a structural side of what we're actually doing in property management to protect the asset and for the property manager. You may not have to go out and present that information we're not saying that's the case, but understanding what was said to win the business means we all have to live up to the brochure and that became a very good part of our conversation. What else do our property managers need help with or what challenges are they facing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, structure and prioritization in their day is another big one. And again, something we've spoken about, I think, in a previous podcast is about doing the right things at the right time. So, for example, arrears for me is about three o'clock in the afternoon is usually when offices that I deal with do their arrears. So it's doing the right things at the right time and it's surprising how many people are lost on that. So we'll have a demonstration of the calendar there of a suggested. We do get a little bit pulled backwards and forwards as a PM, but it's always important to come back to that centre point of where you're up to, nathan there's so much to do sometimes that you can't do it all in one go and it's good to break these down into.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to park that one and I'm going to give attention to this one, because this is progressive learning, even for the complete property management day. The amount of principals that have checked in to look at their business and they may have owned the business 15 years and had 1,000 managements, but what's the modern day property manager need to do and, nathan, I know you've got an event this week where it's a national research of what's going on in profitability, efficiency and how the property managers manage are being retained in our industry. This progressive learning is part of your industry. You can't get it all right in one go, no matter who you are, but you can move forward in progressive learning.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're right, and I think that's why I'm just looking. Funnily enough, I just looked at the list before we spoke and I'd said three principles coming. There's actually six. So the interest in property management and protecting the business asset is an important part of what we're doing as well. So we speak a lot about protecting the asset from a landlord point of view, protecting the property but in this case we've got landlords that are protecting their asset, and that's not just about the dollar value, Because, again we've spoken about this is that we're trying to protect the property manager so that they walk out at the end of the day feeling like they've done a good job and that they want to continue their career in property management.

Speaker 1:

Well, nathan, we're going to cross to our point of the day, which is going to be our ingoing and outgoing, and then we change the track to outgoing and ingoing, but that's going to be our key learning on the podcast today outgoing and ingoing. But is there anything else in that list that you would share with us?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely. I think one person actually said to me I want to know how to interact with my colleagues. So that was important because quite often you'll get someone that's a bit scratchy and we all have personal things going on. But it was a really moment for me where I went wow, as a leader, I'm constantly assessing people, so part of my role is to go into offices and assess what people are doing and how they're, I guess, acting and reacting on the day and to other people. So that was a big one for me because it was a real, I guess, identifier that, wow, we need to have that discussion about how we treat each other.

Speaker 1:

Let's get stuck into our tip and, nathan, I look forward to seeing you at the Complete Property Management Day, but right now, let's do our outgoing ingoing. What do we need to know?

Speaker 2:

Everyone thinks that the ingoing starts at the ingoing, but it doesn't. It starts at the outgoing because we have to prepare this property so that we do as least work as possible by the time the tenant goes in. Because in that ingoing phase, the reason we do this is because there's so much going on at the ingoing. There's getting the property ready. There might be organizing tenancies, keys, all of those things going on at the ingoing. There's getting the property ready. There might be organizing tenancies, keys, all of those things going on. It's important at the outgoing. We get it right at this point. So what we do? We go to the property. Once the tenant has vacated the property and dropped the keys in, we go the next business day, okay, booked in. We also call a tenant, make sure, just check in with the tenant to see if they wish to come to the outgoing. We provide that opportunity to the tenant. If the tenant doesn't wish to come, that's okay. We go to the property, perform the outgoing and things we're looking at there obviously doesn't match the ingame condition report less fair wear and tear, if it doesn't. They're the things we need to do. We note them down and go back to the office. All right, once we've noted them down, and make the phone call to the tenant. The phone call is key and one of the things to remember is, once the tenant has dropped the keys back to the office, they're letting us know that the property is ready for us to inspect. Less fair wear and tear. Okay, so it matches the condition report less fair wear and tear. They're demonstrating that to us. The phone call is important because it allows you to have that conversation with a tenant and in that conversation you're finding out things like you might need to know was the flea spray done correctly by a professional? Were the carpets cleaned professionally? Did you have a professional cleaner go in and do the property or did you do it yourself? And those types of things will really help in the outgoing relationship for the tenancy as well.

Speaker 2:

Once that's done, as we say what to say, what to send, we confirm in writing and I would suggest in this case an email, not a text message and we confirm in writing the bullet points that are laid out very, very clearly for that tenant to action. And in a lot of cases, one thing to bear in mind is that we don't have an obligation to let the tenant go back. So once the tenants drop the keys in, that's their indication to us, as we mentioned before. So we do have the right, from the landlord's point of view, to have a cleaner or a tradesman, whatever it is we need to do go back and attend to that. So if the agency wishes to, by all means let the tenant go back.

Speaker 2:

Once that's done, I guess the next steps after that is organising the correct tradesman. If there's a quote required, we need to provide that quote to the tenant. Might be one, two different quotes, because providing the quote will take out some of that angst where the tenant thinks we might be trying to get them or we might be siding with the tradie. Two or three quotes very important to get those done if it's a large job, and get those out to the tenant for the tenant's approval. All of this, lee, needs to happen very quickly though, because we're on a timeframe to get the property lease going forward. So we've done that, we've executed the job.

Speaker 2:

The invoices are loaded into the system. The next thing is conversation with the tenant. I've got the invoices. Would you like me to take them from the bond or would you like to pay them directly to us and save your bond. And the thing about this, lee, is conversations. It's just constant conversation. It's constant being in contact Because, as we say with landlords, it's the same thing with tenants If the tenant calls you it's too late, we just need to be in front foot all the time calls you it's too late.

Speaker 1:

We just need to be in front foot all the time. Nathan, many of the officers now offer the we'll do it for you or you can do it. Which means on the outgoing, you can have that conversation with the tenant to say, look, if you just want to go, it's going to be $980 for us to put the cleaners in, do everything that needs to be done and you're free to go or you could do it. But if we have to come back and do additional things that difference in cost you may as well have got it done. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, look, definitely I agree, and I think not only is it a difference in cost, it's also another task we've got to go and do as well.

Speaker 2:

So I think what's important about this and does avoid this scenario, is if we do the pre-vacation inspection.

Speaker 2:

I know recently I vacated a property and that particular agency even though they know I work in the industry wanted to come through and show some people. She had a look and said look, I don't need to come back for the pre-vacation inspection, I can see how nicely it's maintained and how clean it is. But that pre-vacation inspection is important because at that point in time we're actually meeting with the tenant maybe one to two weeks prior to the tenant moving out and identifying the things that need to be done at the property. That makes this process also so much easier. So, wrapping it up, I guess the invoices are loaded into the system, we have that discussion with the tenant whether or not they wish to pay themselves comes out of the bond, and then it's a matter of just simply getting the bond released. Sometimes we get to a point where for some reason in our minds we hold onto the bonds, we park it over at the side. We're not sure. If the agreement's been made with the tenant, that's it.

Speaker 1:

Nathan Pansini, I look forward to seeing you next month and for all our listeners, welcome to the Property Management Podcast. What to say? What to send? Today's podcast was made possible due to our support from Detector, inspector and Connect Now. Thank you for your support to the property management real estate industry.