• Tags: "First National News", "Gold Coast Community", "Gold Coast Property", "Landlords", "News", "Palm Beach", "Property Investment", "Property Management", "Real Estate", Rent, "Top Read".

Christmas New Year Boomer

What a busy Christmas season it was, unlike most of our competitors in the Palm Beach area we ran our Property Management Department right through the two weeks from December 20th to January 6^th with only the  designated holiday breaks. During this period we had Property Managers on deck,  doing open homes, renewing leases, leasing properties and generally taking care of the investment portfolio, We leased a lot of properties in those two weeks that we would not have rented had we been closed.
 
For our tenants it was providing a service but for our owners it probably resulted in an additional week or two of rent that they would not have seen if we had not been open, also a leased property that did not have to wait 2 weeks for a tenant.
 
In addition to that we added some new managements to our portfolio.  I was so nice to meet so many landlords who dropped in to say hello and chat about our services,  our New Business team were happy to help.
 
You can do that if you have some depth in your Property Management Department and still  make sure  everybody  enjoys the festive season with the family,  many of our team have small children so it was so nice to  see the Christmas snaps come through .
 
Our key performance indicators for December were 19 properties leased from 954 enquiries that we processed. There were 100 Open House inspections by 298 tenants and we took 68 applications. There were no rent reduction negotiations involved in leasing any of the 19 properties. Considering there were only 17 working days that’s a considerable effort on behalf of the team.
 
January is giving every indication of being just as busy.  
 
Our first major storm of the season tested us but having great systems in place ensured we were all over it, 40 calls for help dealt with easily.  353 mls of rain in 6 hours resulted in flooded homes,  shade sails torn down. fences down, drains blocked and the odd leaking roof.   Dot Hamilton had her first emergency call at 4.19am  and was at the property by 5.30am  to unblock drains and ensure the tenants were ok.
 
We have leased 14 properties  to date in January with 8 new managements coming on board looking for great tenants this week,  the team are busy putting up signs, conducting condition reports and ensuring the properties are ready for leasing.
 
The Southern Gold Coast rental market is strong, particularly in Palm Beach where the new unit blocks are feeding into the market as they settle. Largely these buildings, so far, are being occupied by their owners and are not hitting the rental market  in any great numbers. Nor in some cases are they being set up for holiday letting with no on-site management leaving it up to real estate agents and AirBnB to fill the gap.
 
There are still several hundred units in blocks near to completion and there are more buildings that are just starting.
 
We will have wait until later in the year to see whether the trend is toward owner occupiers or tenancies.
 

by David Hamilton