Why resident managers save money and provide better service

By Trevor Rawnsley, CEO, ARAMA

Onsite building management provides more essential services for a scheme, and they are delivered faster, cheaper and with more of a personal touch than any comparable options provided by off-site service providers.

Resident managers save money for unit owners and the body corporate, and they also add great value to a scheme through their work.

The industry survey conducted by international accountancy group Deloitte demonstrated better returns for owners from properties managed under the Management & Letting Rights model.

The survey responses indicated that a resident manager performs the caretaking functions in a more cost-effective manner when compared to other professional outside alternatives.

Pool cleaners and garden maintenance contractors, for instance, will often charge 20 percent more than what a caretaking service provider would be paid in their agreement because the outside contractor does not have the same guaranteed continuity in their role.

Resident managers offer even greater savings to the body corporate.

Guy Elliott and his partner Kathryn Lipsett are operators of a longterm letting gated community at Sailfish Point in Mermaid Waters. They save money for their body corporate and owners every day, going above and beyond the conditions outlined in their caretaking service agreement.

When one of the pool gates at the complex fell off, rather than call in a tradie, Guy and Kathryn immediately went to a store, grabbed a new gate, and bolted it back on. Job done in 30 minutes and the complex secure once again. They did that for free, but if the body corporate had hired tradesmen to come out it would have been a few hundred dollars and a day or two of additional risk for those unit owner occupiers and tenants who live in the scheme.

Recently they had a drug-affected intruder on their grounds late at night. Some of the residents became quite distressed but because Guy and Kathryn are onsite managers available at short notice, they could watch everything on security cameras and give police an exact location and description of the intruder. An outside security company would charge a fortune if contracted to do that sort of monitoring and reporting work and still they would not be as responsive.

In their caretaking service contract

Guy and Kathryn are paid to mow the lawn 40 times a year. Instead, they do it twice a week. That’s more than double their contractual requirements but they do the extra mowing because they want the complex to look great all the time. If the body corporate was hiring outside contractors, the mowing bill would be enormous, and they would care little for the aesthetic because it is not their home.

Not long ago, when one of the residents of the complex complained that his garage door had slipped off its runners, Guy and Kathryn fixed it for free. If an outside company was managing the property, that resident would have had to ring a garage repairman, pay a $100 call out and then $90 an hour for repairs and wait days or weeks if they could actually find a repairman to turn up.

At the Dorchester on the Beach on the Gold Coast, Michael Cross and his wife Karen, ARAMA’S Building Managers of the Year, view their management agreement as the very least they have to do.

Recently, an elderly resident lost her keys down the lift shaft. She was in a state of panic, but Michael, who has run the complex for the last eight years, quickly came to the rescue in a way that no outsourced facilities management ever could. Michael went to his safe, took out a spare key, walked the lady to her door and let her in. She was looking at a bill for hundreds of dollars for new keys from a locksmith, instead Michael contacted his lift maintenance guy directly and the keys were retrieved for a carton of beer. Job done with a minimum of fuss. That’s just one of the many economic benefits. A resident manager, like having a permanent good neighbour who is always at the ready to solve problems.

Eric Van Meurs, who manages the Atlantis at Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast, says going that extra step is the foundation of what makes the difference between on-site managers and outside service providers.

Eric points out that the extra things that resident managers do above and beyond the MLR agreement can make all the difference to building a letting pool, maintaining that letting pool, and adding value to the owners’ units and to the body corporate.

He operates his business on the premise that it’s not about whether you can charge an extra dollar for something, it’s about what else you can do for people when they don’t really expect it. Delivering service above and beyond the customers’ expectations is a sign of a great service provider.

Eric does enormous research to find preferred suppliers for services such as air conditioning, to find out how residents can save money. He will oversee entire refurbishments for units and won’t charge a cent above the cost of the new fittings because he knows that the owners are creating a better product for him to rent out in the letting pool.

Chris Podmore, who has been at Brisbane’s Riverside Hotel for almost 14 years, saw how plumbers installed tap fittings in units from $250 to $300 and decided he could save owners a lot of money by doing it himself. He also watched how plumbers fixed water leaks and decided he could save the body corporate significant amounts of money by buying and fitting simple repairs himself.

After fire contractors quoted what he says were “ridiculously high” amounts to replace some “003 locks” and the leather straps that go around the associated valves, he found the same locks online for $20 instead of the $100 he’d been quoted. He found the fire-rated straps at $25 each rather than $85 on the contractor’s quote. The savings for the scheme were significant.

Sam Khalef, the owner of the industry’s leading property management software company MYBOS, says building managers using his software save bodies corporate money because they can better keep track of all their work orders and manage preventative maintenance.

If maintenance schedules aren’t checked at the right time expensive problems can fester.

Resident managers using MYBOS also save a scheme money with enhanced communication. If a lift is out of service or a gate isn’t working, or if there’s a flooding issue, the resident manager can immediately contact everyone in the complex by SMS, email or push notifications. Informing residents instantly about serious issues and emergencies saves money and can also save lives.

Simon Carr, from the awardwinning company Wilko Painting, says that good resident managers are right on top of important maintenance such as washing buildings which would be expensive if outsourced.

Companies often issue 10-year warranties on their painting work, but those warranties are only valid if you continue to wash the building. A simple building wash can also identify problems before they get worse, especially considering that a lot of resorts are near the ocean and affected by harsh and moist conditions.

Resident managers are specialists in their buildings, and they know them back to front. If there’s a problem in one unit (such as water leaks) and it happens again in another unit, they pretty much know how to fix it quickly.

The Deloitte survey was completed by lot owners throughout Australia. More than threequarters of the respondents to the Deloitte survey estimated that an onsite letting agent generated higher rental return yields than an off-site letting agent.

More than 97 percent estimated that onsite caretaking directly reduced costs for owners.

These are irrefutable reasons which prove that the management rights business model delivers better services and saves the scheme money 24/7 for 365 days, and it is baffling when the knockers ignore these facts due to their own self-interests and hidden agendas.