Are We Collecting Too Much Tenant Data on Applications?

We break down what really happens after someone clicks “apply”, from privacy-heavy forms to the behind-the-scenes checks that decide who even gets presented to the owner. 

We also unpack affordability maths, why rental ledgers don’t lie, and how good property managers balance hard evidence with real-world judgement. 

• application data versus privacy and what details actually matter 
• why meeting applicants at home opens changes outcomes 
• the non-negotiables: current rental references and ability to pay 
• how we verify private landlord references and spot gaps 
• why the national tenancy database is not a safety net 
• affordability ratios in practice and when higher percentages can still be low risk 
• what tenant ledgers, routine reports and bond outcomes reveal 
• why rushing to avoid vacancy can cost more later 
• how availability dates and inspection scheduling affect leasing speed 

www.socorealty.com.au

Transcript

Welcome And The Screening Reality

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome back to the informed investor. Today, Ash, we are going to be chatting about the application process, what actually goes into screening a tenant when we're leasing a property, and chat all things uh numbers in terms of affordability as well.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Okay. I will be very careful and slow with my response. Yes. As we as we go along with this topic.

Privacy Questions That Don’t Belong

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Because the application is done and there is a lot of information. And there is actually a lot of talk currently in the industry about whether the information we collect, or when I say we, us as an industry, collect and if it's necessary.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Or appropriate.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Or appropriate. I think there was something that came out that, you know, had said things like, is it even important and relevant for us to know the gender of someone? And I mean it's not. It's not. I mean it's not, but it's like everything you fill out says male or female, you know, or um, or you know, un undisclosed type thing. So a lot of the application process is um based just on what the platforms we use ask for. And like I said, some of them are just being questioned at the moment. So um there was another one to say, is it necessary for us to know about, you know, visas, um, your marital status? Like, yeah, there's a whole heap of things. At the end of the day, like if I'm gonna be completely, completely honest, the application is great. But to be honest, I'm just really I I go a lot by by gut feel. And there's gonna be people out there that saying, you know, that's not fair. Like you, you, you can't go by gut feel, but it really like that's how we make friends. That's how we how we live in the world. We're also the industry experts.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

We do this all day, every day. So gut feel does play into it. Yeah. Uh that kind of, I guess, makes me think about like when you have an agency that has a leasing agent, which we've spoken about whether or not we want one, you know, we've spoken about this previously and if it would be appropriate for our team. But if you're the property manager, you're the one that's dealing with that tenancy. Really, you should be the one that meets that person because you get that gut feeling, you have that intuition, and that comes from

Gut Feel Versus Fair Decisions

SPEAKER_01 2:15

years and years of experience of processing applications, meeting people at home opens, seeing the consequences if maybe you do take a risk on someone. So there's a lot that goes into it. And I think when people are not doing their home opens, it can definitely affect who ends up getting selected, what applications are put forward and recommended to the owner. So, and I guess that's something maybe people don't realize so much is the impression that you're making on the property manager at the home open does matter. And I also want to be very careful here with what I'm saying. But it's, you know, there's we there's nothing wrong with asking questions. There's nothing wrong with um, you know, standing there and having a chat to them. There's also nothing wrong if you want to come through and just not say anything at all, if that's who you are, great. But the property manager is the person that you're going to be dealing with. And so much of property management is relationship management. So if someone is able to um pick up on a vibe from you, and then when they get through your your application, you know, we're not working off vibes, we're working off numbers. And can you pay the rent? Are you going to care for the property?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

But if the application matches the vibe that I had.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Well, that's yeah, if the application matches up, but if there's five really strong applications and they are all on par in terms of great rental references, they can afford the rent, you know, we can see that they're going to care for the property. The owner then might ask us as the professional, what vibe did we get from each of these people? Who might we recommend? So it is something to consider, but we are very careful with our application processing. There's a lot of legislation that we do have to work around in terms of making sure owners do not discriminate when choosing people. There's certain questions that unfortunately we do get asked that we have to say, you can't ask that, and that doesn't actually affect the application at all. This won't affect if they are going to be a good tenant or not. So um, yeah, I think a lot goes into it behind the scenes, but I do think it's very interesting seeing the discussions happening right now around the information being collected and and the privacy side of it. Because to be honest, I do agree. Like I've seen some application softwares where they, you know, you read through the questions and it's just, what has this got to do with anything about the tenancy and how they're going to care for the property?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, that is right. The um the but the problem is is that we need to have the information because you do have to compare them. Like it's not like we're just getting one application, like, and then we we don't if we had one application on properties, uh, we technically don't need all that information. But when we've got to make a recommendation or a difference, the more information, the better sometimes. And otherwise you are left to only make a decision on your physical meetup. And then you're gonna get to a point where people are gonna say, well, that's unfair. Well, if you take everything else away on the application, that's all I'm left with as well. Like I feel like that there probably has to be a little bit of a better balance. Like I do agree, there's things like you know, male, female doesn't make a difference. Um, you know, there there's lots of there is lots of things that don't make a difference. And there was another one that said like the names of your um dependent children. That's not important either.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Names of pets. Yeah. Like why are application software's even asking for that? I've I mean, I've never had to go through this on on a tenant side, but I could imagine how frustrating it would be going through so many steps to complete an application and there's another field and another field. And going through, if I was someone filling that out, I would be thinking, why on earth do you need the name of my pet?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

However, one of our property managers does like to have the photo of the pet with the name of the pet on her board, doesn't she? She's still got that, hasn't she?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

I mean I think she might have taken it down. I feel like she's taken it down. I think she had too many.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

She just loved seeing all of the different pets, and I used to love seeing all the names as well because people get people do get really creative. But you know, that's something that she can learn through building that relationship with the tenant versus making that a requirement to fill it out on the application. It's not necessary information.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

She used to put like the photo and she would like let's say the the well, my dog's name's Nala, so let's just use it Nala. And Nala, my house is at Smith Street, she'd put Nala Smith. And that's how she would do it on the desk. It was quite cute. It was very cute. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, no, a lot of that information's not.

Why Leasing Is The Key Role

SPEAKER_00 6:34

But um, so I did a podcast um a long time ago, and I remember the leasing consultant was a um, like I'll call him, I'll say that he's 60 years old. And I actually thought to myself, this is really weird. Like, what sort of 60-year-old is a leasing consultant? Because typically in our industry, leasing consultants, that's where you start. Like you're a junior, like young female, that's where you start and you build yourself up. And it was only after that conversation I was like, I have been thinking about this completely wrong. The most important role is that leasing role. And if you get that right, everything else is smooth sailing. So the fact that they had a mature male who had the life skills on a leasing role, I reckon that is the smartest thing I've ever seen done. And so he was actually a BDM and a leasing um consultant. So he actually used them both um, yeah, because he would see people at the uh home opens and then he'd do new managements. It was a beautiful blend. Um so I but that's why our property managers do their own leasing because they like to um meet the people that they're gonna have to deal with. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

And I think that makes a lot of sense.

References Decide If You Progress

SPEAKER_01 7:43

But when people are filling out applications, so I just did a home open yesterday for one of our PMs who's on leave. I haven't done one in a long time, but I put my hand up because I like to kind of still stay involved and see what what sort of people are coming through, see what questions we're still getting, see what sort of turnout we have. And the biggest thing that I was making sure I spoke to people about when they were saying, okay, well, how do I apply is please make sure your references know that they're going to be contacted. Because in terms of what we do behind the scenes to process an application, we are checking their current and previous rental references. Obviously, we put a lot more weight on the current reference than their previous because you could have been a great tenant six years ago and maybe not a not so great one now. Uh, so that is that, and can they afford the rent are the two biggest things that we're looking at. And if we're processing an application where, you know, we might have gotten a really great vibe from them at the property, or maybe um, you know, that there could be something where we really want to proceed with this application. But if we can't get in touch with your rental references, we can't do anything. Our hands are tied because that is the most important piece is to speak to your current agent and find out do you pay your rent on time? Do you look after the property? Were there any breaches, any issues like that? If we can't get access to that information, then we're not gonna send that application to the owner because the owner's gonna look at that and say, we're missing half of the info that we need.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

And with that property, there there was a lot of probably a lot of applications. So really the ones that are completed are the ones that are going through to the owner and the rest um just aren't really gonna get a chance with the the um when it's not completed. So when we put an application to an owner, generally um it is completed, and the ones that are completed are the ones that are going through to you to make a decision. And there will be, yes, there's the written references. So we'll the I mean, at the end of the day, the rental reference is what I'm wanting, like I'm wanting. And I want it from a real estate agent, to be honest. Like I'm not really wanting it from a private landlord.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I think private landlords are typically okay. There's just extra verification that we go through from the property manager's side. So if you're an owner and you receive an application and the person does have a private rental reference, it's I think some owners see it as a red flag, and it's not always because I do know or have had uh plenty of tenants that have come from private rentals, especially in the market that we've had in the last couple of years, a lot of people had to resort to renting a room. So I would never, I guess, discount an application just based

How Private References Get Verified

SPEAKER_01 10:12

off of that. But so that the owners are aware, if we have an application with a private landlord, we're actually verifying that that reference that's been provided is listed as the current owner for that property. And if that doesn't match, then that's a red flag to us and we won't put that forward.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

And there's little things like little tricks that you can do um to verify, you know, you're calling up uh Sally who's been listed as the landlord, but you're not sure if it's a friend of the tenant or not. And um, you can always ask Sally what their middle name is because generally someone won't know what their middle name is for um when they if they were listing a fake landlord. So that would probably have you done. I've never done it. Oh yeah, because I don't think I would know all my friends' middle names. No, no, because no, because RP data, you've got the actual owner's name. Oh, and so then and so then they put the owner's name, but then they don't know the owner's middle name. Yeah. And then when you call it for the reference, you're like, just for verification, can I confirm your middle name? Well, if it's a friend like playing, playing landlord, they're generally not going to know that. That's smart. Yes, I've never heard of that. No. There you go, there you go. Um, so there's that. There's also you could also ask them if they have any other properties or like, you know what I mean? Like, um, or when they're just that's a BDM side of things as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, true, true. Are you after a property manager?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

That's right. How many properties do you own? Um, so there's a couple of little things that we do on the back end.

Application Gaps And Honest Stories

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Something that's can be seen as a red flag that a property manager will hopefully look for this in an application um that they're processing for you is any gaps in an application. So if they said that they've been traveling, if a tenant's been saying they've been traveling, um, if they've been sometimes when they've been traveling, they might have been in jail or something like that. Um, they've got like just like a gap. And it's like, what happened? Or maybe they live with family or whatever it might be. You'd the way that I see an application is that I just want to like create a story and fill in all the gaps. And so I want to know the good and the bad and the ugly for applications because that to me is more important than me going, well, I don't know where they've been for six months. Like I would rather, I'd rather you say, Listen, I've had it. The property manager and I didn't get on very well. Um, and you know, we had a bit of an issue when it came to mold in the bathroom, and I'm just worried she's not going to give me a great reference.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Like I'd rather you be honest. Yeah, just yeah, because being honest makes a big difference. Yeah.

National Tenancy Database Misconceptions

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Something else that we're checking is our system will automatically run a national tenancy database check. But I think something that owners don't realise is at least in WA, we have to have court orders to be able to list someone on the NTD. So there could be a tenant that is possibly lying about their previous rental reference. But if there wasn't actually a court order in place, we're not they're not gonna flag on that.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

I don't rely on the NTD. I'm a bit wishy-washy on it. Look, it's not a um You wouldn't go, oh, they're not an NTD tick. Yeah. They're gonna be fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Exactly. It very rarely have I actually processed an application and had someone come up on there because it's not uh it's not, I guess, used the way that a lot of landlords assume it is. We can't just blacklist, people like to say blacklist, we can't blacklist a tenant just because um something went wrong in the tenancy. And I guess this kind of comes into that final inspection episode is um, you know, if there's if they've damaged the property, but they actually pay all of the repairs. That's it. That's end of story. There's no, there's no listing them on a national tenancy database, there's no blacklisting them, there's nothing like that. We can't even, we're not allowed to um, I guess, tell other property managers even unless they specifically ask us for a rental reference with a privacy statement attached. So there's a lot that kind of dictates if someone's on the NTD or not. And just because they're not on there doesn't mean that they haven't, I guess, had a bad rental history.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Affordability Ratios And Real Context

SPEAKER_00 14:06

The other thing that the application brings up is the affordability now. This is a hot topic. Do you know what? I I was really disappointed in the media the other day. I think I I said this to you. There was an article, it was trying to shine this as a negative. And it was like more than 80% of people are spending 32% of um their household income on rent. And I was like, That's really good. That's good. That is good. But they made it sound like it was a negative.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

So for us, the ratio that we work off is 30 to 35%. Yeah. So for them to be running a story like that must have been a very slow newsweek. Yeah. It's look, there's numbers that we have to run, but there's also so many other factors that can impact a tenant's affordability. So, and I guess this comes into the privacy piece where um, you know, they're gonna be changing regulations around can we ask how many kids they have and things like that. But that actually does impact their affordability. Because if you've got one person on their own earning, say, 100K a year versus one person with four kids earning 100k a year, one person is gonna, you know, have probably a harder time paying that rent. I'm trying to be very careful about how I go about this. Uh, one person's likely to have more trouble paying that rent than the other because they have other things, other costs to factor in. So when we're actually running the numbers, those things do come into play and they will impact how we see that affordability ratio. And unfortunately, we do still have a lot of applications coming through where people provide their financial documents and they just physically can't afford the rent.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

So it's But there's so much more to the there's so much more to affordability. Like I think that landlords, I mean, to be honest, I would be if you could I think you can justify that even 40, even 50%, you know what, of your rent, like household um income on rent, is probably still doable. And I mean, the only reason why my mind changed a little bit um once was because we were looking at a um, I was working, we do a bit of philanthropic sort of um tenancies in our office, and there was a family that had left uh w Middle East, wherever it was, and had come over to Australia. And they had come over as a bit of a sponsorship. And their affordability with what they were given as an allowance in Australia, their rent would be, I think it was like 60% of the um, the rent would be 60% of their household income. And what was really interesting is that immediately we would go, oh, that's a lot. That's not going to work. It's really hard for a property manager to put that through to the owner to say that that um that I think this is going to be a low-risk tenancy, until the lady that was helping facilitate them was explaining to me that in their community, we have, you know, a they had a really strong um, from a cultural point of view, community in in Perth. And the services and the support that they all give each other meant that they actually didn't really have any other expenses. There was no extra schooling expense for the kids, all their books and uniforms, all of that was supplied. Um, a lot of their meals and their support in their community, even like things like Nails and Beauty, it was all swapped in Perth. Um, and she was like, so yes, it's 60% of the rent, but there's actually still nothing left for them to pay with the other 40%. And I think as well, as um, like I've got to be so careful with how to say this, but some cultures are a lot more sensible with money than what people like me are.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

And I guess that comes back into that rental reference side of it. Yeah. If you've got an application where maybe the affordability ratio isn't something that we would typically look at in a positive light, maybe it's sitting a bit higher at 50%, but you can see with their current rental reference, the rent that they're paying now is, you know, equal to or around the same amount and they don't have any rent arrears. That's perfect. That's yeah, that tells us everything we need to know is that surely it might be a higher percentage when we look at that ratio, but clearly they've got a a good history of paying their rent at that amount.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

So then then they should never be questioned on the affordability, I believe. Yeah. If they've got proof that they can pay that rental close to it. 100%. On a reference. Like then, yeah, affordability doesn't ever

Ledgers Inspections And Behavioral Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 18:24

matter.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Do you want to have a chat a bit about, I guess, rental references? And this is more from, I guess, a tenant side, but what we've been seeing lately where maybe tenants aren't realizing the impact that their rental references have.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah. So we had um, I mean, at the end of the day, like we want every tenant to have a great tenant ledger. Like we that's what we want for you. We're gonna we want to work really hard with you as a tenant to make sure we can give you the best tenant ledger. So when you go to find another property, um, you've got that that good, you know, um track record. I think a lot of people think that they're good tenancies and they're not good tenants.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

If you're looking at the ledger, let's just look at let's let's be look at facts here. Okay. Your tenancy ledger is a requirement when we're uh processing a reference.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I can't lie or modify that.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

We can't lie if we're providing that ledger for someone else as a reference or if we're receiving it from a different agent. The ledger cannot lie. No one is no one can amend that. So you're either paying the time or you're not. Yeah. So if there's breaches on there, if there's arrears on there, then that is going to tell us a story. If there's termination notices issued on there for rent or damage, things like that. That again is telling us a story. So from I guess a tenant's perspective, we have had people question recently why they weren't approved for a property and it came back to their ledger, or maybe they were evicted through court for rent arrears at their previous agency and things like that. So I think maybe sometimes owners don't realize that these are things that we're actually combing through with uh like we're being very uh careful going through these ledgers. It's not just, okay, great, here's um tick, tick, tick from this email reference. We're actually going through and checking their last routine inspection report. It's not just going by what the property manager is saying because unfortunately, some property managers have lied to get bad tenants out and become someone else's problem. So from the owner's um perspective to understand what we're doing behind the scenes is we're checking those routine inspection reports from their previous agency. We're checking that ledger to make sure that there weren't any ongoing arrears. So there's a lot that goes into processing the application. It's not just, um, and I guess this is why it's really important to understand what's included in your leasing fee, is it's not just, oh, okay, here's um that they've just leased the property for me. It wasn't that much work. It's okay, no, we've got to conduct the home opens. We have to go through and and vet all of these applications and process them. We're checking them uh in detail, then compiling them, summarizing them in a way that's easy for you to understand, because we're trying to make sure that it's um, you know, we're not using specific uh lingo or jargon that we use. We want to make sure that we're making as clear as possible to you what this application consists of. And then that that's not even going into all the work that happens once the application is approved.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, correct. And like just thinking about that tenor ledger, for example, like you could, for example, there's a difference between a tenant currently being up to date and their history of their repayments as well. So you might get a reference from a um a property manager for the tenancy and they're up to date with their rent, but maybe throughout the whole tenancy, they've been paying $1,000 here, $200 there, $6,000 lump sums, like all of those things tell a story. And the it tells a story of um someone's of someone's behavior, like of are they are they like very regimented with their. Accounts and with their finances. Do they um do they uh pay like and there might be a reason for those um big payments or sporadic payments, but that is a little bit of a red flag if there's sporadic uh amounts and um and times that they pay, because that shows a bit of inconsistency. Like that's a um, then you've got your, yes, you've got your routine inspections, but not only your routine inspections, but how did that final one inspection go? Did they get their bond back? Were there any problems with their bond? Like, for example, they might have had a big cleaning bill, but it might have just been, yeah, that yeah, a cleaning and guarding came out of it, but they ended up going over to overseas really quickly. So they said, no worries, just organise whatever you did. So behaviorally, I don't care that there was garden and cleaning to be done out of the bond because they were easy to deal with to get that done. Or even if the tenant had um, let's say there was some damage, like at a and you're doing a reference and and that's the reference that came through. There were some bond expenses. But I'm more concerned about how were they to deal with through that process. Through that process, um, as opposed to the actual deductions. I don't know. I think there's things like that. I mean, but that's where that's where that whole sort of gut and behavior comes into it. And I think like people, I don't think people realise. I mean, I should say we've all got our own version of normal. Not saying my normal's any different to your normal or someone else's, but some people do do things that are a little bit of a red flag, and you might be listening and going, that's really weird, Ash. But you know, tenants that come through home open and um say, Oh my god, I love gardening so much, I'm always in the garden. And they but they go on and on and on about the gardens and nearly always crap gardeners. Like they just Do you have this often? Some yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't remember a lot of things, but I do remember, and I don't do a lot of home opens these days, but it's just imprinted in my mind this one lady who didn't leave me alone and was telling me how much, but it was just that she just went on about the gardens and how she pays her rent on time, and it was just too much. I don't know, like having that gut feeling. It was it was it was a gut feeling, and I was just like, I've I've that that's how I've been I've been screwed over before when that's happened, and now I'm just like I don't I I don't buy into it anymore. But if but it it's uh it's gonna sound so wishy-washy, but it is it's the gut and it's that energy and someone that feels the need to like sell themselves to me and say all these things. I think do you know what it is? I think is when people tell me what they think I want to hear. Yeah and it's like that's actually not what I want to hear hear. Like I can I can get that information from my residency. Yeah, you don't need to you don't need to go down that line. Like tell me um like I would rather know is um like is this place close to your kids' school? Is this really convenient because your kids catch a train to TAFE and this location's perfect for you? That's the type of conversation I want to know because then when I go to the owner and I speak to you and I say, I've got a really great application, I think this property's perfect for her because kids' school is around the corner, she works full-time, and her oldest child can literally just get on the train and go to TAFE. Isn't that a better discussion to have? It comes back to painting that picture for the owner. Yeah. So they're the discussions that I like to have, they're the conversations I like to have. Um, finding out about, finding out about how this home is going to be super comfortable for the tenant and how they're going to enjoy living at that property. For me, that's what I want to know. And I want to articulate that to landlords. And I actually genuinely believe that that's what landlords want. They want someone who's going to love the home and what it's got to offer with location and the property itself because they want someone to love it. Like, that's that's what you want to hear. That's what I want people to have. Like, yeah, I don't want people to be desperate and like, you know, I don't know.

Vacancy Fear And Rushed Approvals

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Do you want to touch on, I guess, the risks for an owner rushing into a tenancy or accepting someone purely just to avoid having the property being vacant?

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, I I get it. Like, you know, you your property's vacant, you you want to get someone and you want to get that rent paid, you know, as soon as possible. Um it's it's only going to affect you in the future. Like there's there's no, there's always a tenant for a property. Your property's not going to ever be vacant forever. Like it's yeah, it's not that there's not going to be a tenant, basically. Like you always have one. Um, you will, I think you should really trust the the property manager. I mean, I would rather, in when we've had really low markets and there's only been one application. I mean, we've been so lucky. Uh, but that also to remember that some of our landlords, they've never experienced a low market before. They haven't experienced a property that's been vacant for two months. They haven't experienced only having one application to choose from. And you're all going to have to experience that it will happen, I'm sure. Maybe not in your life, but it will happen again. So when we've had that happen to us in the past and we've had the application um, and maybe we're not a hundred percent sure, I've always said to owners, listen, this is the only application we've got. Um, I would, I would rate it normally. So I would say to them, listen, I'm not, I'm not 100% on this application. It's a little bit of a risk. Um, it might be fine, it might not, but I'd rather just be completely honest with you. And um, you know, put that back, I would put that back on the owner. The risk of us not going ahead with his tenancy does mean that the property could be vacant for um another couple of weeks till we get another one in. Where the difference is, is there are some applications where they're just not good at all. And we're not talking about those ones. We're not putting in someone that's got a bad reference for the sake of it. I mean, that's not even an option. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

I mean, the property manager really wouldn't be putting that forward in the first place. No, it's they wouldn't be processing it because it's a waste of everyone's time.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

We're talking about the ones where they're probably going to be fine, but there is probably better out there and then taking that risk. Um, I think I would find that most owners in that situation, if it wasn't a hell no, most owners would probably be okay taking a risk, to be honest. As long as that tenant could move in within one week or two weeks. I mean, you're not going to hold on to a, you know, I'm sure they'll be fine for a four-week move-in date.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, I agree. What sort of time frame do you think is reasonable to have the property vacant between tenancies when you're talking about available

Setting Availability Dates Without Chaos

SPEAKER_01 28:55

dates? So I know some property managers will make the property available the day after the current tenant vacates. I'll never understand that. It's not physically possible to get in there and do the ins the two inspections that you need to do, your your final inspection and your next ingoing inspection. Plus, if there's anything that needs to be rectified in terms of cleaning, damaged, gardening, from your perspective, what do you think is in a is a reasonable time frame to position that available date?

SPEAKER_00 29:19

From when a tenant applies for a property, I always want them to be able to move in um within sort of two to three weeks max. So I don't want to accept any application that tells me they've got a four-week in very small situations. Generally, you've got to be able to move in at least within three weeks. Um, in terms of the vacancy time, see, I actually have a different take on that availability date. When properties become vacant, I normally put the availability date as the day after, not for that's when the property is literally available to move in. I just put it because that's when the the back-end system allows home opens to be booked in automatically. That's why I do that.

unknown 30:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Is it wrong?

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I mean, I personally I always used to put it a week after the tenant's vacation.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah, but that means that the system doesn't allow home opens to be booked in till the availability date. I don't think that's right. Oh, it's been a long time since I've done it.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

In IRE, you can you can book in home opens with the tenants still there and everything. That's fine. Yeah, but you have to manually do it.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

How are you setting them up to not be done manually? Well, because like so if you put a home open date in, it'll let people book in to that time. Yeah. But if there's no home open time available, it'll s it'll say no upcoming inspections, but it's only when the availability date's put in there. Like if the availability date says 15th of September, then it will allow automatic home opens to be booked in after the 15th. It won't allow them on the 14th.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

That's my worst nightmare as a property manager for a home open to be booked without me realising. Really? Yeah. Do we not do that? I don't think we do that. Get out. Really? Yeah. This is something for me to check once we finish up. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I thought that we had like literally this is the way. Because what if you get there as the PM, you get there to the final inspection, the property's not in a condition to show anyone through to, but you've already had a home open automatically scheduled and now 30 people are registered.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

It's never really happened to me that it's been a problem. Hmm. Interesting. So you're saying that every time someone inquires about our properties, they have to like wait for us to set up a home open time in the property.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah. Get out. But we can do that in advance. Like we can so say if the available date is one week after the tenant vacates. Yeah. Typically we'd be conducting a home open before the tenant vacates, anyways. So we'd have that one. And then I personally would add another one for once it is vacant as well, probably the day that I'm doing the final inspection. I'm already at the property. And then if I don't need it because I've leased the property from the first one, then I'll cancel it.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

But there you go. I mean, it has been in fairness, it has been a while since I've actually had to go in and do that. Um and I would say that we it's not been no well, I haven't noticed it because the girls must be putting in their home opens anyway. Yeah. But when like I was like super active doing it, I literally because like I re is good because you could just set your preferred time. So I would say that my availability on my calendar, because it's got like a calendar link that I'm available to do home opens between 12 and 5 on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And whatever books in, books in. How interesting. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Hence why I don't do property management day today anymore. But there, but I don't know. But isn't that it's it's funny because like everyone does things so differently and we just assume, like, yeah. You kind of assume everyone's doing it the same way that you are and to talk about it. Yeah. That's right. I mean, I've but I've also never had a need to double check that because it's working beautifully, which whatever way it's done anyway. But I guess it's also really probably important to know that like different markets as like markets do change. So clearly, as you can just experience from our conversation, what I was doing in a different market where we had um, it was really hard to lease properties. I wanted tenants because I needed tenants more than what they needed us, you know. I was my calendar was open. You book in when you need it, and and we're there. So where that market's changed a lot. So now it's like, no, property managers are so under the pump, they need to put that in there and you need to make that time. So different market and different um experience. And we may or may not need to go back, depending on what that market is, but we'll we'll see. Oh, interesting. There you go. Great chat. Yeah, that is a good chat. Yeah, I don't think there's anything else about um applications that we

A Final Awkward Reference Story

SPEAKER_00 33:44

need to talk about. It was just that I guess we could just share one more like funny story that sometimes it happens is with the um remember that we had a a tenant that didn't get approved for a property, and he would then he then message and was like, Can you please double check my references? And it was like so awkward because it was like you literally were caught evicted. Why did you put your property manager down as a reference? And like part of I put this on my Instagram the other day, part of me was like, you know, and you're doing exactly what we tell you to do, be honest. But now I don't like it. Yeah, I've told that story a few times recently. I know it's a tricky one. But anyway, as you can see, there's like so much in the back end of application processes, things that you wouldn't even know are getting done. Um, you're not seeing those calculations. All you're seeing is that beautiful little email template tidy with a little bow on it. There you go. Um but I guess it's just important to know that there is more to the story that gets done. Um and um and if you ever have any questions with your property manager and the application and maybe why they came to the decision of an application, if they've done it in preferences, um, always just pick up the phone and have a chat because as you can see, there's so much information you can just get from the uh property manager with their experience with that person that also might be hard to articulate in an email and might be better off having as a phone call.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yep. Amazing, great. Thanks, Ash.