What A Property Manager Should Check During A Routine Rental Inspection

We break down what routine inspections are actually for, what WA rules require, and where “thorough” turns into unreasonable. 

We also tackle photos, privacy, inspection frequency, and why remote inspections may become normal if used with care and consent. 

• WA notice requirements and practical scheduling with tenants 
• Routine inspections as a general check, not a condition report 
• Setting owner expectations around what can and cannot be seen 
• Clean versus tidy and what “reasonably clean” means 
• Risk based checks that prevent damage and maintenance blowouts 
• Photo standards that protect the property without exposing personal items 
• Why 360 cameras can be invasive in a normal tenancy 
• When checking under sinks is reasonable and when it is not 
• Owners asking for appliance or reticulation testing and why that is out of scope 
• Who may conduct inspections: PMs, assistants, dedicated inspectors, outsourcing 
• Remote inspections as an option for sickness, leave, safety, and efficiency 
• Reviewing inspection frequency for long term low risk tenants 
• Fair thinking on fees for remote versus in person inspections 

Transcript

Why Routine Inspections Matter

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome back to the Informed Investor Podcast. Ash, today we are going to have a chat about what really goes on with a routine inspection, what sort of things property managers should be looking for, what is a reasonable expectation.

WA Notice Rules And Time Windows

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So if you want to start us off on, I guess, the process in terms of the WA legislation, what sort of notice we have to give tenants.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Oh, you're asking me for the T's and C's. Um okay, we're testing my knowledge right now. We need to give the tenant seven to 14 days' notice of doing the router inspections. And it's a form 19. Yep. And tick, tick, tick. And one of the two time frames. Oh, and you can either do a morning or an afternoon. I think is it eight till twelve? And twelve till five. Is that what it is? Excellent. Good job. For the record, I don't do it on a day-to-day anymore. That's why I sent me to like really put you on the spot. You did, I did. I'm glad that I uh got that right. Um, so tenants are given the correct notice to go do it, which is great. And if a tenant calls up and says, listen, I I can't um do that time or there's a reason for it, because I would probably prefer uh tenants be home if they've got animals or if um they've got children. I'd prefer them not to let sometimes people leave their kids at home if they're sick. So that would be better if they're home for that. But it's not unreasonable to negotiate another time with tenants to make it suitable for them as well. It's only a problem when it becomes an ongoing habit and it seems that the tenant is trying to avoid the routine inspection being done, that we will be aware and we'll um make a plan with how to deal with that. So routine inspections, now there's so much to unpack. Lots to unpack because where do

The Real Purpose Of A Routine

SPEAKER_00 1:46

we even start? Let's start with what the routine inspection is for to start off with. So I think that people need to remember that routine inspections are not an ingoing inspection, it is a general look at the property. Um, it's also just to maintain that tenant relationship as well and just to check in with how they're going and making sure that they're comfortable. It's to um check any obvious maintenance. And the reason why I say obvious is because tenants are living in this property. You can't see everything. Like you can't be expected, it is overall. So that does mean that there's gonna be times that things aren't gonna be picked up.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Aren't gonna be picked up. I've had in the past a shower that was leaking into the wall, and the tenant had a tall boy dresser there. Me as a property manager, I am not going to go into the property for a routine inspection and move their heavy dresser over to check that the walls don't have water damage. That's not a reasonable thing to do. As you can imagine, I had to have that conversation and set those expectations. But, you know, we that that's a safety issue for me. I'm as as the property manager, I'm not going to come in and move a heavy object. It's just how it's like how we don't expect tenants to clean the gutters because it's a safety concern. We don't want them addressing things that are above head height from a, you know, a work safety point of view. So it's definitely about making sure.

Clean Vs Tidy And Damage Risks

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And again, I'm bringing it back to that BDM conversation. These are things that owners should have their expectations set from the start. When we're coming through, we're checking obvious maintenance, we're checking that the property's well maintained, reasonably clean. Clean doesn't always mean tidy. I think that that's a very there's a a clear distinction between the two. I used to tell tenants when I was doing my sign-up appointments, I'm not checking to make sure that you've made the bed or that you've done the dishes, but I want to make sure that the actual carpet itself is clean, there's no stains, there's no issues there. I want to make sure that the kitchen is clean, the appliances aren't, you know, uh in a bad condition or or too dirty. So we're not checking you, we could go through a property and the tenant could have mess, but the property itself is clean. That's what we're working it from.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

And the reason why we're checking the things that we're checking for are to make sure that there's nothing that's going to cause further damage. So for example, if there is stains on carpet and maybe that's left too long, it could be even harder to get out. If you've got an exhaust fan that's dusty, it could prevent airflow going through. Can also be a fire hazard. Fire hazard. You know, they're reasonable things to ask to be cleaned. Bench top, you know what's nice to wipe your bench top down. Is it going to cause any further damage? Well, as long as it's not something that's going to attract um in uh like cockroaches and bits and pieces. So if someone likes to keep um all their condiments on the bench top and not put them in the pantry, it's not doing anything. It's just annoying. Yeah. So you don't do that, do you?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

No. Okay, good. My partner does. Oh, it doesn't? No, he just leaves them out. He takes them out and forgets to put them back and it drives me crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

I'm like the polar opposite, like I was cooking a stir fry last night, and I literally like go get like the sesame oil out of the pantry, put it on, then go put that back up, get one, like that's get one. That makes sense. Do it the right way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, because then at the end you're not left with a huge mess.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

But anyways, we're getting we're getting sidetracked. So um, so we're checking those things. We're checking like um obviously, like even with lawns being mowed, um, lawns being mowed is good to be done because if it gets too long, then it can affect the sprinkler system. When you cut when it you leave it too long and then you cut it short, it there's a lot of dead growth sometimes that's underneath. So there's a reason why you want to mow regularly. Um with garden beds, like having them weeded is good to do because it can be really hard. It's act that's actually harder for the tenant to have to deal with afterwards, to be honest. But it can also, weeds can actually suffocate any plants, you know what I mean, in the garden. So again, um, there's reasons for those things, but they're the things, they're the only items that really need to be um checked from a maybe the way a tenant's living to make sure that there's nothing that's gonna cause further damage. The second thing I would say is that there are times that tenants aren't going to mention maintenance because they're worried of the rent going up. Yeah. And so we want to make sure that we're protecting the whole tenancy. And if we do see something, that that's not fair for the tenant to be living like that, but they literally don't want to mention it because they're worried about, you know, getting in trouble, then you really property managers need to be mentioning that and and and looking after that tenancy and and the rights to make sure it doesn't um um you know backlash on the owner as well.

How Many Photos Are Reasonable

SPEAKER_00 6:29

So that's what you would be checking if there's something obvious like that. What do you think is reasonable in terms of photos? Photos, I think reasonable. Now I see some property managers do like mini property condition reports. I know. Drives me crazy. Drives me crazy, I agree. And then and the problem is that owners then think that's normal. And then they go to another agent and then they're wondering like why it's not done the same. And it's like, this is it's good just to know every agency will do their inspections differently and they'll have a reason for that. It's a really good question to ask property managers. See, I actually probably prefer to have more photos than any description personally. Yeah. Some people though would probably prefer more description and less photos. But I think as long as you're capturing the whole area, so for me, a photo in a bedroom, it I mean, you potentially will be fine just doing one photo, but I mean two photos max in a bedroom.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Oh, okay. See, I'd maybe I do things differently. Yeah, okay. I think something I was always very mindful of is making sure that I don't have the tenant's personal items in my photos. So if I go into someone's bedroom and they've got photos up on the wall or photos on the dresser, I'm actively avoiding those when I'm taking the photos. Okay. So my way that I would do it and how I would train if I had a new PM start today is I'm taking photos of the floor, the walls, the ceiling. I'm not taking a photo from the corner that has their bed, their personal items in it. That doesn't do anything for me if then six months' time there's a large crack that's appeared and I've got to zoom in to try and see if it was in that corner because I never had a photo of just that wall. So to me, I'm I'm looking at it from protecting the tenant's uh privacy in terms of photos and personal belongings, but also how can I help myself if I need to refer back to this routine inspection to prove that something wasn't damaged, prove that that um, you know, that could be for either tenant um from a tenant dispute or from insurance side of things. I just want to make sure that we're capturing the physical property and not necessarily how the tenant has styled it, has has their things. If you know, if there's sometimes I've seen photos that property managers have kept in on reports, and I just think, did you really need to include the tenant's underwear on the floor? We could have probably removed that out. We could have cropped that. We probably could have taken a photo of a different part of the carpet to show the owner that it was clean. So I think that comes into it a lot, is the privacy side of things.

Privacy Limits And 360 Cameras

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And I know that some property managers are using 360 cameras. I was just gonna say, how are you coping with that? I I actually I strongly disagree with using a 360 camera for a routine inspection. I think it's too invasive for for each for just a normal tenancy. On occasion, I've had uh an owner that had never seen their property in person before. So I spoke with the property manager and they checked with the tenant. The tenant was okay with us doing a 360 routine purely so the owner could like virtually see the property. They could virtually walk through it because they'd never seen it before. That was a once-off. Doing that every single time is, you know, I wouldn't want someone coming into my house and doing that every three to four months. That's I don't I don't think that that's very fair. So I have had words with people where I know that they're doing that, and at the end of the day, it's their portfolio, they can manage it how they want. But if a tenant requests to not have that, I think that's very fair slowly. And that's when I'd be saying, okay, switch over to your normal photos, floors, walls, ceilings. Um, something that comes up very often is checking things like under the sink and flexi hoses. Property managers, yes, if they're going through a property, they are checking for maintenance. So if they notice that a flexi hose is is starting to look rusted or they can notice that there's a smell in the bathroom, they should be kind of checking under the cupboards. But it's also not fair to be opening the cupboards and taking a photo underneath that bathroom bench.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah. No, that that is fair. I don't know if I used to really do much underneath the the benches, but I I would if only if I smelt because you can smell it.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I typically would would check with the tenants anyways. If they were home, I'd say have you noticed everything? Yeah. You can smell it when you walk into a bathroom if you think that there might be something going on, there might be a leak underneath, but it's not really reasonable to be going in there and checking under there every time. And there's been times where I have had to look and there have been personal items in there that I don't think the tenant would have wanted anyone to see in that situation. I had I had checked with them anyways, and it was fine. But I think it's again managing those expectations on what's reasonable and what's not.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah.

What Owners Expect Versus Reality

SPEAKER_01 10:48

I have had owners ask me why I wasn't testing the reticulation at every routine inspection. Again, I'm not living in the property.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

No.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I'm coming through, I'm checking to make sure the tenant's maintaining it. There's no obvious damage, there's no cleaning that needs to be um staying on top of lawns are all good. I'm not coming through and testing every single appliance. It's not a it's not an ingoing condition report, it's not a final bond inspection, it's not a pre-settlement inspection. It's a routine inspection. And if you actually refer to the RTA and what's included of what's um and the lease agreement on what we should be doing, I'm not going through the property and and especially if you have a whole portfolio testing the reticulation of every single none.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

No. And and let's also remember that some states don't even do routine inspections and some states only do one or two a year, and WA can do up to four per year, um, which is really overkill.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

It is overkill. And I think also the fact that we have our first routine inspection at six weeks, it's too early. Yeah, it is. It's I think back to when I moved into my property, was I settled by six weeks? Absolutely not. I had boxes everywhere, like you're not set up, and also nothing can really happen in that six weeks. If they're when we're going through the property, we are typically looking for red flags in a tenancy if there might be something going on. Six weeks, you're not going to notice anything.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

I I'm personally of the opinion that we should be pushing that out to at least eight weeks. Is there a reason why we haven't done that? Push it out to eight weeks, as in as a so-called policy. Yeah. Not really.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

It's just kind of been it's industry standard. So I'm not opposed to that being changed though, um, to the eight-week mark. Um, because I think that's just in our system that we just change it, isn't it? Probably be a bit of a pain to go through and change it though. Mind you saying that maybe for new properties moving forward. Yeah. But also I'm just thinking as well, even though it's set up as six weeks, you don't necessarily do it on the exact day. So it probably, you know,

Who Actually Does The Inspection

SPEAKER_00 12:39

goes on. Um, so now let's talk about who actually does the routine inspection, because this is really where I think a lot of owners just assume that their property manager does the routine inspections, which is not, there are so many options that can be done. So, yes, you've got your property manager that could be doing them. Your property manager could have an assistant that does them. The agency that you go with might have an actual leasing and inspection officer in their office. This is why you've got to ask the questions when you take on a an agency, a property management agency is find out. I mean, if it's important to you, find out who does it. Because some agencies just have complete, you know, um, people that do just routine inspections. You can outsource them. So there's some great outsources in Perth where they specialize in doing agencies inspections and they specialize in that. And then the last one that I want to open up people's minds with is remote inspections.

Remote Inspections When They Help

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Can we just touch on that just a little bit? Yeah. The remote okay. I'll allow it. Okay. So the reason why I just want to bring this up is that I don't necessarily agree with remote inspections. This is when a tenant conducts the inspection themselves, and we've got some great software that allows for that to happen. I don't agree on that being necessarily done for as a process, but I think there's some times where an agency can really um harness the efficiency of having access to this for a couple of reasons. So one could be when a tenant calls up and says that they're sick and they don't want anyone in the home, it could be an option that they could do, you could send them the remote inspection link and they could potentially do that themselves and send it through. The second thing we had a tenant, uh, sorry, a property manager that was sick one day. I personally don't like tenants having like to put them out. Like if we've got a property manager who's sick and that inspect those inspections can't be done, like that tenant's gone through a lot of effort getting the property ready. Um, a lot of tenants surprising, like this actually surprises me that they get a lot of anxiety with through ten inspections and people coming through their home. If I've got a property manager who's sick, um, I will, this is what we did. We emailed the tenant to say, I'm really sorry, she's sick today. Um, would you be comfortable doing a remote inspection? And they loved the opportunity to not be mucked around and to submit that and um send it back. And I have to say, the quality of the remote inspections, I have been impressed with. I there's only been one that came through that I wasn't, and I just said, listen, we're gonna have to do a traditional one. Um, but the rest were actually really, really good. So I think in those situations, um, I think they're really is really great to use it to um create those strong relationships and trust with the tenants. And I think they feel really good, not for everyone, but for these situations. Um, it might be that there's a tenant that's going, sorry, a property manager who's going on holidays for a couple of weeks. Now, I don't know whether you agree with this or not, I think this is just going to be a thing of the future. And I think that having, while as property managers on leave, having remote inspections maybe in place for their one week or their two-week leave is not a bad idea because it means that we're not getting, we're not putting pressure on the rest of the team. We've got strong culture, it's they're supported when they're on holidays. You know, they're more likely to stay when they know that everything's covered when they're away. Um, they come back, they don't have to catch up on their 50 routines for the month, and that's what causes burnout. Like there's a bigger, there's a bigger benefit to one in one remote inspection being done per year and three being done in person. And then my argument is also to clients, you you don't even know who's doing your routine inspection. So, like, what difference does it make? What difference does it make?

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, I think that's a good point. It also builds trust with tenants. Like you said, the response was actually really good with those ones that you reached out to. So if you have a a long-term tenant that is caring for the property, why wouldn't you offer this to them as an alternative? Yeah. So it definitely makes sense.

Adjusting Frequency For Great Tenants

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And I guess something that we do at SOCO is when we're doing the investor audits, we do review the inspection frequency. And clearly we don't review all of them because I typically just review it if it's in an audit and I found a property the other day. The tenant has been there since 2006 and they were still having routine inspections every three months. Oh, poor tenants. So, and not a single complaint that I could see from this um lovely old man. So I I just made a note to have a chat with the property manager when she was back from leave that we're going to push those out to probably every five to six months.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Five to six years?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah. He'd been there for over 20 years. What? Yeah. So I think that that's a really good point is to actually review your inspection frequency. If you know that your tenant is taking really good care of the property and you're getting the same report four times per year, we don't need to be going out and sending you that report over and over again, charging you that fee. It's not worth our time. It's not worth your money for that fee. And it also inconveniences the tenant. So there's nothing wrong when you do have a long-term tenant with reviewing that and bumping it out if you need to. Of course, you'll have situations where you might have a tenant that's been there for 10 years, but things are still not quite, you know. Sometimes there might be a couple of routines where the lawns are let go and things like that. In that situation, you just keep it as is. But otherwise, why wouldn't you look at reducing them and save yourself a bit of money?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah. And and I don't think routine inspections are a moneymaker to an agency as well. Like we don't really, I wouldn't say we profit off any routine inspections. It's literally just for the time for the property manager to go out there. So um I yeah, I think it's a complete waste of everyone's time and and energy, and it's not really a money-making thing.

Fair Fees For Remote Versus In Person

SPEAKER_01 18:24

What's your view on charging fees for tenant-led inspections then?

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Um, so I think that there's actually still quite a lot of work in the back end. So I absolutely believe, I think the fact that routine inspection fees generally uh just cost price anyway. Like they're not like I said, they don't, we don't make money off them. Um, the there is still a lot of time because you've got, I mean, you've also got the software. Like we've invested a lot of money into the software that we use that allows remote inspections to be done. So there is a value for the technology to be able to do that in the first place. So there's a fee associated with that technology. Um, the second thing is that that link goes out. And so routine inspections have to be planned per normal. The link gets sent out, um, that has to be monitored when it comes back. But there's actually the ones that I did, I did have to go through and process that um inspection really well. I'm not just getting it and then just flicking it off to the owner. I'm literally looking at the inspection and deciding if I'm happy with it. Um, there was maintenance that was reported, and I was still doing a visual inspection of that, no different to a junior inspector in some offices going out and doing a routine inspection and coming back, and the senior property manager who's your contact, having to process and still read through and check that they're happy with that before sending it to the owner. So there the only difference is um it there is a time, you know, of actually going out to the property. But to be honest, um, the cost that we charge for a route inspection really should be the cost for all remotes. And there actually should be another charge for going out to the property. I mean, if anything, I'd be should we build that into our MAs? We should build. That's a good idea. And having the remote price and then which would just be at literally our normal price. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

But if you want it in person, then and I guess not all tenants want to do remote inspections, anyways. I'm sure some would see that as our job and not theirs, which we totally understand. But if it's an option, if that's if you're an owner that maybe is wanting to keep costs low, if that's gonna align with your investment strategy, that could be something that we actually offer long term and we can just be upfront with the tenants about it and say, look, this is the structure for this specific property. Any issues, let us know.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

I think there's better things that a property manager can do with their time that's gonna benefit the owner than then the routine inspection.

The Future Hybrid Model And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I do, I do feel, and and again, whether you agree with this or don't agree with it, I think it is just the way that the future is going to go with routine inspections. But what I would say is I don't think there's necessarily one size fits all. Like we're pretty lucky that we we use a lot of different methods. Um, so what I would say is, and I don't know if we've because this is sort of still um evolving in our office, but I do hope that we get to a point where the property managers are looking at their inspections that are due for the following month, and then they're going, okay, I need to do these ones because there's problems going on or maintenance or tenant behavior issues. I need to do these five inspections. So I'm gonna book these in for myself. These ones, the tenants have been in there forever. They're perfectly fine. I'm gonna outsource those ones. Um, at these properties, we're going to do remote for whatever reason that might be. And also, like, we can't also forget that there are some situations where tenants are potentially um like it's a safety, a safety issue going out to do. I mean, I know no one wants to talk about it, but you know, when we've got a tenant that's got an ankle bracelet on. I'd prefer that's for your remote one. You know what I mean? Yeah. So because then otherwise you've got the time of two staff members attending. Yeah, that's right. So there's so many different reasons why. And like I said, remote might not be part of it. Maybe it's just that the prop the inspections that the property manager has to do versus the ones that we outsource to a professional. And then basically the remote is only used for annual leave when someone's sick, whether it's a tenant that's sick or the property manager that's sick, and those ones are just done ad hoc as needed. That would probably be like my ideal situation. And moving forward in the industry, I think that that's going to really work really well for the clients. And I, but I do, I do genuinely believe that give give it five years, I reckon routine inspections and I'm sorry, remote inspections, I reckon they're going to become even yeah, they're going to become the normal. They're going to be the norm.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

So interesting because they came out during COVID. Yeah. Like that's I, or I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe they were already a thing before that. But I feel like that was when it really became an option on most softwares. But at least in WA, because we didn't really have that many restrictions. We kind of used them for a little bit and then went back to normal. So they kind of have sat there as an unused feature on most softwares since then. So it'll be interesting to see if you're right. Interesting. Watch your space. Yes.