tenants

Tenants: How to stage a coup on your real estate agent.

So you’re currently renting a property through a real estate agent and you’ve had enough. They never return your calls, you can’t seem to get receipts for your rental payments and you’ve been trying to get the lock on the front door fixed for a month now.

What if you could get rid of your real estate agent?

In this post I’m going to give you some ideas as to how to stage a coup on your real estate agent and give the owner of your rental property the confidence to become the landlord themselves.

1. Be direct about why you would like to get rid of the real estate agent

I’m sure you’ve got valid reasons for not wanting to deal with your real estate agent anymore but you need to make these clear and concise. If it’s because you don’t want a property inspection every three months that’s not the best reason. If it’s because you’re not getting a decent level of customer service or you’re being hit with unnecessary fees than you’ve got a stronger case.

2. Find out why the owner uses a real estate agent.

The owner of your rental property has decided that they want to use a real estate agent for a reason. If you’re going to persuade them otherwise you’re going to need to know what this reason is. It could be to do with finding new tenants or handling lease documents. Once you know the reason you can see if you can create a compromise to allay any of their potential fears about handling the property themselves.

3. Give them a copy of your states “Landlord’s Guide”

Every state in Australia produces their own version of a Landlord’s Guide. It is basically a manual on how to manage a rental property including both tenants and landlords rights and responsibilities. Because it’s produced by government departments it is going to carry a lot more weight than what you can possibly say and it should help the owner of your rental to feel more confident as a private landlord.

You can find links to each states Landlord’s Guide in our landlords section.

4. Highlight the savings.

If you call your real estate agent they should be able to give you a schedule of their fees for property management; how much their management fee is, what extras they charge for etc. Using this you should be able to calculate how much the real estate agent is costing your properties owner every year. This figure effectively becomes the amount you’re going to be able to put into your property owners wallet every year if they decide to handle the property themselves.

5. Get an equitable lease agreement

You want to make it as easy as possible for the owner to fire the real estate agent and getting a well drawn up lease agreement is the best way to go.

The length of the agreement is up to you though the longer the tenancy the more attractive it will generally be for the property owner. If you’re already signed to a lease with a real estate agent this should be able to be continued with your landlord.

For a comprehensive collection of quality lease agreements relevant to each state in Australia check out Law Live.

6. Setup a direct debit.

One of the biggest concerns for private landlords is that rent will not be paid in full and on time. The best way you can make them feel confident about this is to setup a direct deposit from your account into theirs on a set day every month. This will mean that the rent will be paid every month automatically without the risk of a missed or late payment for any reason.

Your property owners bank will be able to give you a copy of a direct debit authorisation form which you will both need to fill out.

7. Show them Truecasa.com

Let them know that they’re not the only ones getting rid of their real estate agent. In Australia approximately 40% of all rental properties are managed by non-agents, I figure we anticipate will grow steadily over the next few years.

Truecasa has a wide range of articles and resources your new landlords will find helpful and hopefully inspiring.

At the end of the day the best advice we can give is to be honest and transparent with your intentions and your actions with the property owner. Mutual respect will lead to a long-lasting, positive relationship free of real estate agents.

If you do manage to stage a successful coup or have done so in the past let us know in the comments, we would love to hear about it.

Ned

Tags: private landlord, private landlords australia, private tenancy agreements, real estate agent