Investor Conversations That Change Everything

We talk through the investor conversations that shift everything, from maintenance panic to leasing slowdowns, and why “normal” only makes sense when you can compare your property to real benchmarks. We share how trust, context, and clear communication help landlords make better calls with tenants and property managers, especially when budgets get tight or emotions run high. 

• becoming a landlord without a guide and why education matters 
• using benchmarks to judge property performance properly 
• differences between states and the trap of cross-state comparisons 
• why annual investor audits reveal hidden pain points 
• maintenance perception versus actual maintenance reality 
• capturing the story behind a property to avoid misread reactions 
• leasing expectations in patchy micro-markets and affordability limits 
• simple checks for pricing, listing position, and marketing quality 
• market rent versus mortgage increases and expense recovery myths 
• requests for housemates, capacity, overcrowding, and lease process 
• planning for big-ticket items and avoiding overwhelm 
• triaging repairs, spreading costs, and keeping tenants in the loop 
• expecting communication from landlords the same way we expect it from tenants 

www.socorealty.com.au

Transcript

Investor Talks That Shift Everything

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So today we are talking about conversations we have with investors that change everything. We have lots of different conversations with landlords. We have them when we are needing to be reactive with stuff, and then we have some really proactive conversations. And I think for me, the investors don't necessarily know what's normal and what's not normal as an investor. I think that investors don't know how to be an investor. There's no guide. There's no guide, that's right, on how to be in, which is why we're hoping that these episodes can be some sort of a guide. But you come into come into being a landlord without having any, yeah, any training, having any guide. So you do have to put a lot of trust in your property manager, but equally you're balancing that out with your own thought pattern and what you're seeing on social media groups and all of that. And it's really hard, I think, for property managers sometimes with some of these conversations because they are personal conversations. They depend on your experience with how you've been brought up, with understanding property. Maybe you've never been a renter, maybe you have been a renter. Everyone comes with so much baggage, can be good baggage as well as bad baggage, don't they, as clients? So conversations we have, it's really important for us to educate clients and for them to trust us with the education we're giving them. Because I think one of the best things that we can offer is sharing with you the experience of what is normal and what's not normal in the investor world and how your property is performing in comparison to others.

Benchmarks For What “Normal” Means

unknown 1:53

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

And we're talking about a dashboard that I use which shows me benchmarks. And I say to these other business owners, you can look at your PL all you want, but you don't know is that a good number or a bad number unless you speak to other business owners and compare them. And I think the same goes with investors. How do you know your property's performing well or not? You can ask one mate, but or you can speak to a property manager who has experience with hundreds of properties to say this is quite normal.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

And something else to keep in mind is that it's different for every state. Yeah. So how your property is performing in Queensland versus your property in WA, they could have different benchmarks. And we do actually have this conversation quite often. It's like when owners compare the difference in fee structures. Over East, they're much lower than what we charge in WA. But there's different standards, there's different benchmarks in different states. So if you've only spoken to your property manager in one state, and then you think that your other property might not be performing well, that's when you need to be having that conversation with your property manager. They're the one on the ground with the experience in that state, and they'll be able to tell you how you're performing compared to the other properties on the market.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah.

Why States Perform So Differently

SPEAKER_00 3:19

I had a client that I was doing an annual investor audit for, and I, as I'm pulling up all these records, I said to him, How's your maintenance going? How are you feeling with your maintenance? And he goes, Oh, I get quite a lot. I was like, Okay, let's check it out. So we're going through his transaction history, and he had literally like one visit or two visits by contractor over 12 months. And I was like, seriously, on a scale of one to 10, yeah, with maintenance, you're about a two. I said, in comparison to other investors, they would dream of having this portfolio, like or this property, really low maintenance. And he was just like, oh, fantastic, that's great. But really interesting as well that he felt like it was high because he had two maintenance visits. So in his world, that was high. But then I had to explain to him that no, in comparison to other investors, it's good. And I think that understanding that is something that's really important because I wouldn't want him going around spreading a story that his property managers have lots of maintenance on his property because that would be unfair.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

But it also affects their thinking. Like you don't know what that owner's thinking. They could be sitting there worrying about this property and thinking, why is there so much maintenance? What's going on? They could have these concerns that come out of nowhere, and then the property manager, the next time they send something through, don't understand where the owner's coming from if they then get frustrated. So it's having those open conversations, and that's where those audits are so important.

Maintenance Fears And Annual Audits

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

To find out where the owner's sitting on this property, where are they feeling might be a pain point, but also to find out what their strategy and what their story is behind each property. I know we've had properties in the past where there's been, I think there was one story with a house fire and the curtains were that one. Yeah. And the owner was so distraught about these curtains, and the property managers just couldn't understand what was the big deal about these curtains.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

They were what's they were like 40-year-old lace curtains. Yeah. Aren't you happy insurance is paying for new ones? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

But then it turned out that it was their mum's property, right? So they had that emotional attachment to the property, and I think that's a really interesting thing. And even just as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking I might start tracking this and making extra notes on file because I have these conversations with owners in audits of you know, what's your investment strategy? What are your goals? But I don't have anywhere that I'm recording the story behind it. Yeah. So if you've got a property manager and they understand your purpose with this property or they understand your history, that it was has been passed down through the family, it means that property manager then understands and they can handle your communication, they can handle your maintenance accordingly to that story rather than just flicking off the maintenance and going, oh, the curtains are ready to go. And that owner would read that and take that to heart. So having those conversations and understanding where they're coming from with their properties, I think makes a really big

The Hidden Story Behind Reactions

SPEAKER_01 6:12

difference. And it also adds to building that relationship.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So much of this job is relationship management, and we're seeing that shift where property managers are seen more as advisors. So if you're letting them in and you're letting them know what your purpose is with this property, it means that they've got that understanding with you, and it helps it really helps build that rapport.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, absolutely. And that one with those lace curtains, it did take us a long time to actually work out why was this behaviour so extreme from the client? And I think it was that her late mum had, or maybe her mum had only just recently died, and her mum had actually made those curtains when she first moved into the property, and it was like, okay, that now makes sense. Like we get that. And then interesting enough, I've got a friend whose house recently burnt down, it was a rental property, and the owner's over the moon. Fantastic. I get to insurance is going to pay for it to be renovated. So same situation, but two different reactions. So and so I guess as an investor, if you are finding that maybe a property manager isn't understanding your point of view or where you're coming from, adding in that story to help us understand why you might be reacting a little bit more than someone else, or generally, yeah, that's that storytelling that you that we do love to hear. I know that we've got one in South Perth, and I know the story of it, and it's a very old property. The owner really needs to sell it, but it used to belong to her her parents, and she grew up in the home as well. And so she's just not letting go of the property, but it's getting to a point where there's a lot of maintenance and she doesn't have the financial capacity for maintenance either. So decisions on that property we are making to balance her situation is that we have got the rent intentionally low on there because the truth is that if that tenant was to move out, she would have to do so much more. And the tenant also understands the story behind it, so is more accommodating and understanding of the property being managed in a little bit of a different way. So everyone's got that same understanding. But if you don't know that, then I would the property manager in any other situation would be hounding the owner to do all this work where we ended up being able to modify. I think there was a situation in this one where the lighting in the lounge room needed to be all rewired, or the alternate was to, I think, to rewire maybe the PowerPoints and to put a lamp in there. Now, you know what? If the tenant wanted to, they could demand that those lights in the ceiling be redone. But given the story and the situation, we were able to negotiate lamps and they were fine with that. And so it's not what's one of those situations where it's we had to get that agreement.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

You need that context. Oh, yeah. And make sure that how the property manager goes about their job, how the owner handles things, having that context makes such a big difference to make sure that everyone's on the same page. Yeah. Otherwise, you're never going to reach a great result like that one.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

No, absolutely. What

Leasing Reality Versus Media Headlines

SPEAKER_00 9:19

are we finding in our office? Real sort of common, lengthy questions and maybe misunderstandings and conversations are looking like. What are you what feedback are you getting from our team?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Maintenance. Maintenance is that yes. Yeah. But also we're finding what we're seeing on the news is different to what's actually happening on the ground. Yes. The news is still talking about this rental crisis, and yes, it is a rental crisis, but it's also an affordability crisis, and owners aren't understanding that anything above that 700, 750 per week, people physically can't afford it. So things have really slowed down, but we're finding that so it's at that leasing point, is where the PMs are really having to be quite open and upfront with the expectations for the owner when we're listed in it. That look, we might try this price, and if it was six months ago, we would get it straight away. Now you need to be prepared that it might take another two or three viewings, or we might have to adjust it after the first week.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah. I have recently just dealt with one where the property's not with our agency, but the owners called me up to get a bit of advice. And when I've looked at the property, so for her experience, the property manager hasn't given any other ideas in regards to what else to do. They're basically just saying, just got to sit and wait. And sometimes sitting and waiting is something that, yeah, I do have to say to owners, listen, there's no other way to say it, but you're just gonna have to be patient. But this is where it comes down to the in comparison to other properties. So if all the properties in the area are performing the same way, they're all sitting vacant, they've all got a longer vacancy time, they are all getting pretty poor quality applications come through, then yes, you're just gonna have to sit and wait and ride out this season that we've got. But if you are seeing that other properties are leasing and moving, but yours isn't, there's a problem. And so I think isolating the market situation or is it a property situation? And there is things that you can do to check. So for like leasing side of things, I would be checking is the price comparable to others? Is it listed towards the top of page one? Do the photos look decent? And then I would probably the fourth thing I would do if I was really concerned is I'd probably just like screenshot what's currently available and then just check it in another five days time to see which ones of those properties have moved and which ones haven't. Are the other properties all still sitting there? Because if they're all still sitting there, it's a market issue. But if nothing else, sorry, if everything else has moved and mine's still there and the new ones have been coming up, then I'm going to start questioning a few things. So I feel like you're absolutely correct in what the media says versus what's actually happening on the ground. Yeah, it's so different. And I think it's because it's in general, like it's the market talks about Perth as a market between Mandra and Yanschep, but we've got so many micro markets. So many micro markets. So we're definitely seeing a slowdown in the Rockingham area. Renewals are pretty, pretty low at the moment. They're sitting maybe around $20 a week, when previously they might have been like 50 to 70. We're seeing properties taking three to four home opens instead of just one. So that's a micro unit where give me a property up in two-bedroom villa, like you cap it out at 30, 40 people. And remember when there was that big article in newspaper with a photo of that home open? Oh my gosh, that causes chaos. If you're one of those landlords that called me up to say, why is my property not leased out? Because I just saw the West Australian, then I have to give you a lecture to say, yes, your property is not a two-bedroom unit in June Dunna, in inner city. That's right. And I remember speaking to the West Australian about that when they wanted me to do a response piece on it. And I was like, that's an isolated case. And they were like, so should we just write that the market's patchy? And I was like, small and patchy. It's like anyone that has a property there. And I guess, yeah, that's where you really need to trust your property manager. If your property manager can give you some backstory behind that article and give you that reassurance that your property is consistent with what the market's doing down there, it's fine, it's fine to question the property manager a little bit because, in fairness, there are some property managers out there that might not be doing everything they can. Correct. Maybe they only do one home open a week because that's their office policy or at a terrible time. Correct. What are they doing? Like it's good for them to try and have a solution, but do make sure that you're looking at all the layers in regards to that before thinking that your property manager is doing the wrong thing. Because I know a lot of the conversations that I have sometimes investors that call up because their property hasn't been leased out. And I will check it and I'll be like, you know what, it actually looks good. There is nothing I think your property manager is doing the right thing. I don't think they're doing anything wrong. I think you just need to listen to them all and be patient. But that comes down to that trust.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Are you finding any other common misconceptions?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

I'm

Market Rent Versus Your Mortgage

SPEAKER_00 14:47

not anything that's that I can remember that's like consuming. Definitely the market conditions, definitely. I think misconceptions can sometimes be probably around landlords that have had a really high expense year. And then it comes to the renewal, and then they say, Oh, I've just spent $10,000 on the property and I need this extra amount in rent, and then I have to explain.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Or my mortgage has gone up by this much. So you have to increase it by this much. Yes. They're different. Your mortgage is your mortgage, and the market rent is the market rent. Yeah. And if you can't afford to keep that property at market rent, then you can't afford to keep that property. Yeah. That's it. Like you can't be charging tenants more because, first of all, they won't pay or it won't rent. Yeah. But you that's down to you and your investor strategy. So it's so important to have a plan of if the market turns, what is the next few years going to look like for you? Will you be able to afford to keep that property if you don't continue having these great $50 rent increases that you've had for the last few years in a row?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah, yeah, it definitely. And I mean, it I always say it works the same way. What are you telling me that if you your mortgage goes down that you're gonna give the tenant a rent reduction? Don't think so. So it's it can't be. I feel like it's such a common, I feel like it's just such a it's just common sense, but it's not.

Housemates Overcrowding And Common Sense

SPEAKER_00 16:09

And actually now, another one that just comes up actually a bit is when investors say to me, if a cli a tenant wants to rent out a room and put an extra person in, and they say, Can I increase the rent? Because I've got an extra person in my property. No, you're and the same thing I would say, oh, so when that person moves out, are you happy to reduce the rent? Or if only one person wants to rent your home, you're happy to give them a better deal because it's only one person, not four. No.

unknown 16:35

That's not how it works.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Why would you think that an extra person is going to add more rent to it? Yeah. The rental income is based on the market, supply, and demand, and the house. And I think that definitely actually this would be quite common conversations that are coming up with when tenants do want to bring in housemates, because that is becoming a bit common. And I think that people generally want to say no to that. I would say to you, it's are we having a situation where there's overcrowding in a home? Because absolutely, like, I don't want to have situations where I've got three bunk beds in every single room, like in a four by two. That's not common sense and that's not reasonable for a property. I don't think that's good for a property. However, if you've got a couple living in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home and they want to rent out one of their rooms and they want to bring in someone there, that's not overcrowding. That is very reasonable. I actually find it's very sensible. It helps them pay the rent. So hopefully you don't have any rent arrears. It's your home is a four by two.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

It's it has the capacity for it. Yeah. As long as they're going through the right channels and having the person apply approved and get approved, added to the lease. There's people look at it as, oh, what about the further wear and tear on the property? But again, it's okay. So for the next tenancy, are you going to decline anyone that's more than two people?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, but that comes up. I there's a lot of owners that have four by twos that only want two people in their home. Really? Like number one, you can't do that. Number two, it's like if you bought a four by two house.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah, what did you expect?

SPEAKER_00 18:14

What did you expect? It's a family home. Yeah. And guess what? They're probably going to have pets as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah, or possibly kids in the needs and there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

That's right, and both are absolutely fine and you can't discriminate. It's yeah, it's I find that's really, yeah, just a really interesting conversation. I would always be saying, the conversations I would be having with those clients that worry is does is the capacity reasonable? Generally, nine and a half times out of ten, it is always. And number two, look at the benefits of what that can be for your property. And I would say that you're going to get longer-term tenants, pay their rent appreciative that they've been able to do that. And yeah, there's a lot of benefits to it, more than negatives. I don't think we're going to see any negatives.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Have you had any experiences lately speaking to an investor that felt completely overwhelmed?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Where

Big Bills Cash Flow And Options

SPEAKER_00 19:09

I'm finding overwhelmed clients is probably more in their personal circumstance. I think a lot of our clients are single income at the moment, their wives are on maternity leave, they're having children, maybe they've lost a job. Like landlords that go through real stuff as well and personal situations. And it's the overwhelm that I'm finding is with their personal situation, and they haven't taken that into account when they've bought the investment property. And quite often, I don't think people have allowed enough of a budget for big ticket items. So if your property has an aircon and that aircon needs to be replaced, if it's a split system, it's going to be two and a half thousand a unit roughly. If it's seducted, be prepared for a $10,000, $12,000 bill for that. That throws people completely out. Even hot water systems, hot water system is $2,000 roughly, that throws people out. It only takes a couple of big ticketed items for people to get very overwhelmed. And our agency is flexible. If I can see that I've got a good owner who is in a and they've told me that story, we've spoken about in previous episodes about the story. If you've got a story and a situation, and I can see you're wanting to do the right thing, but you're just really stuck right now, I can spread that over a couple of bills if I need to, or I can hold that contractor off for payment for 30 days, or I can take that into next month's more next month's pay cycle for you. I can work with you in some situations. If the bill is quite a high one, like an aircon, I can put it through Tappy where you have a interest that you can pay, but pay it off in monthly payments. And like we can help you with all of that. But saying no, I can't afford it is not the option.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, and I think that's why it's so important to make sure that again you're giving your property manager that insight into your situation.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

That you do have a good property manager that can work with you on a maintenance plan. If you've got multiple big maintenance items that come up at once, what are they doing? Are they sitting with you, calling you on the phone and working through it together to triage and address them in order of importance so you can spread those bills out over a couple of months?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

And then letting the tenant know as well. So it's not flat out, no, it's we're doing this right now because it's urgent. We'll do this next month, and then in two months' time we'll address this one. But that's when you've got those lower, lower items like toilet roll holders and things that the tenant can survive with for a couple of months. It's building that relationship with the tenant as well and keeping them in the loop so that then they don't have this perception that the owner's not doing anything. They can be more compassionate because they can understand it's getting done just in order. Of importance.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Yeah, totally. And the same goes is what you as an investor expect from a tenant. If they're having rent arrears issues, we ask them to communicate with us, tell us what they're doing, tell us what they're planning on doing, let us know. We had one the other day that said my pay cycle's just changed, so I can't pay rent this week, but I'm going to fix it all up next week. No problems. We can put a note in the file, and if it's the first time that you've put through a request, it's generally okay. And an investor might not even notice that because of the pay run. We can manage that for you. Sometimes we still issue the correct notices, but we then explain to them, listen, I still have to issue the breach, but I'm putting a note on file when you receive that. Don't stress about it. It's just a paperwork issue. So just like we expect the same communication from a tenant, when they're in a financial crisis, we do expect that same communication from you as a landlord that you're going through that. And then we can give you options. And there might be a situation that I can't help you, and I'm just gonna have to say, I don't know what else to say, but if you don't do this, is the risk. And but it's very rare that I'm actually having to have that conversation because but again, it's educating them.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah. So these are the options, and these are the consequences if you won't proceed with any of those options. Yeah. If they're aware that they might get a breach from their tenant, if they're aware that the tenant might vacate at renewal time in two months, like if they understand all of those options, they can then make an informed decision.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Communication With Tenants And Owners

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I think we're we're pretty lucky because we are all quite conversational, like in our office. Like we all do get on the phone and chat to owners. And I feel like we all know our owners mostly on a good personal level. Like I can message one and say, hey, just sorting the kids out for dinner, I'll give you a call back. Or we can have that good relationship. One of our landlords, I don't know if he called his kid the same name as Kate's kid, but I was like, is that like a coincidence or is that who does that? But like we do have good relationships with all of our clients. And but I guess the purpose of owners listening to this is to really protect you if you have a property manager that that doesn't do these things, or you don't have that relationship with, or think that you can't have that relationship with them. We want to encourage you to to take on board what we're talking about into your own relationship with your property manager as well. Yeah, absolutely. To help them work, work, yeah, work better and have that better relationship. So I yeah. Most are pretty good though. I I think we're we're so lucky, but you do attract, don't you? Like as an agency, we attract the people that are like us. So it's like that give and take.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

People come to us for a reason because they know that this is how we operate.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah, yeah, and we're having those conversations from day one. Exactly. So we know most things.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

So about setting those expectations.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful,

Wrap Up Subscribe And Send Questions

SPEAKER_00 24:56

always good chatting to you, Marissa. And I'm looking forward to the next couple of episodes where we talk about software, I think is going to be the very exciting part. So if you're listening today, do make sure that you keep an eye out for the future episodes as well as they come up and subscribe to this podcast so you get notified. And of course, if you ever have any questions or have any burning topics that you want us to discuss, feel free to send through a message on this platform or send through a message to our Instagram at Soko Realty or Southbest Local, and we'll be very happy to bring it up.