Australian survey shows good communication vital for property management success

PERTH (Feb 1): Good communication with tenants and owners are among the top priorities of property managers seeking to overcome persistently high vacancy rates in some of Australia’s capital cities.

About 64% of respondents in Rent.com.au’s December property manager survey agreed that good communication with tenants and owners will be their key focus this year as they work more effectively to meet their clients’ short and long-term objectives.

The portal’s founder and CEO Mark Woschnak noted that property managers are focusing on strengthening communication with tenants and owners in order to establish the best possible level of customer service.

Besides good communication with tenants and owners, developing higher quality listings and tenant retention are the key focus for property managers, the survey found.

Property managers have also expressed their interest to better themselves in writing property listings, vendor paid advertising and responding to appraisals as they sought to improve their online marketing and multimedia application skills in order to boost their enquiry rate, Woschnak said.

“The traditional forms of engagement with clients are rapidly changing,” he said.

Some of the biggest challenges faced by property managers included implementing new technologies in a busy marketplace, finding quality applicants for vacant properties, sourcing and securing new managements and having renters show up for viewings once a timeslot is booked, the survey noted.

The survey also showed that 82% of property managers considered building their rent roll to be very important.

Meanwhile, 28% of them wanted to grow their rent roll by 50% this year while 26% wished to grow their rent roll by at 11% to 20% this year.

The survey’s other findings also showed that most enquiries came in via e-mail (83.33%), followed by phone (11.11%) and walk-ins (5.56%).

According to Woschnak, another major driver for property management success this year would involve developing strong tenant retention strategies.

“Retaining good tenants is vital to the growth of any agency,” he added.

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