The largest and most experienced property management team in Merimbula

With a total of 12 staff members that are involved in sales, permanent rental, holiday rental and strata, Merimbula Lake Real Estate is the largest real estate agency in Merimbula. We are also the most experienced property managers in the town with over 50 years of experience between our staff members.
Susie Butler has been with Merimbula lake Real Estate since the business opened in 1998 and therefore has excellent local knowledge. She has maintained strong relationships with our landlords and tenants, some of who were Susie’s original landlords when the business opened. Susie is joined with Jessie Pettit who was an experienced property manager in Victoria before making the sea change to Merimbula at the beginning of the year. Jessie has a strong focus on modernizing the systems and procedures of the office including the use of technology to assist in their everyday duties. Together they are team that cannot be beaten with their focus being on friendly service, knowledge and expertise, regular communication with their clients and advanced technology.

Routine inspections

One of the most important duties of your property manager is the routine inspections, which are conducted throughout the tenancy. Our office conducts routine inspections every 3-6 months on every property in our portfolio. We have even had tenants contact the office to ask if they are being targeted as we conduct them so regularly! A full inspection report is completed including room-to-room analysis that will give the landlord feedback on how their properties are being looked after. We also include any maintenance that is required and may give advice on any improvements that could be made to the property to ensure your asset is cared for comprehensively.

Rent arrears

As the rental payments make up our owners income and often help with the mortgage repayments on the property, it is very important that rent is paid on time and the tenants are up to date. We have a very strict policy with any of our tenants that do become behind in their rent. They are constantly followed up with letters, telephone calls and we even do door knocks for those more difficult to contact. If the tenant is in arrears by more than 14 days we are able to send a termination notice and will follow through if payment is not made. We forward all rental payments to our owners at the end of each month via direct credit or cheque. We also provide a full statement and also a comprehensive end of financial year report for taxation purposes. All agent fees are tax deductible.

Rent Reviews

It is important that rent reviews are undertaken regularly as to get the most of your asset. The rental market is ever changing (generally ever increasing) therefore we ensure that properties do not get left behind and remain at market price. Once the fixed period is over, a rental assessment will be conducted and the owner asked whether they would like to increase the rent before a new fixed period is created. We will offer advice on the market at the time and recommend a suitable amount. However there are some tenants that we have that are worth their weight in gold so an increase is not always required. Either way, it is important for landlords to be aware of the current earnings on their asset.

Tenant Selection

This is an area that we find very important as not only do you not want an undesirable tenant in your property, we certainly do not want the hassle of managing undesirable tenants! We ensure that a full application form is completed that includes rental and employment references and full identification. We prefer rental references from a real estate agent as we know that we are getting the truth about the tenant and will not put forward an application to the landlord that does not satisfy our stringent requirements. Currently our portfolio of tenants is excellent with the vast majority of our tenants looking after the property and paying rent on time. Sometimes we do not have enough properties on our list to house all of our exceptional tenants therefore we keep enquiries on a database to ensure that we can find them something suitable.

Advertising

To ensure that we find all of the desirable tenants, we must use advertising that covers the widest audience of potential tenants as possible. The Internet is by far the most popular source of enquiry these days, in particular www.realestate.com.au This is worldwide search of properties available and as Merimbula has many people moving to the town, it is an ideal tool for interstate people to find their ideal home. We also have an excellent website of our own that you can view available properties. To cover the local population, we also advertise in the local newspaper, Bega newspaper and our rental list in the office.

ConnectNow

Our office is also unique in the way that we have the use of a system called connect now which simplifies the moving process for our clients. It only takes one simple call from a connectnow advisor to organize all utility connections, insurance, removalists etc. If you would like to use this free service also, please don’t hesitate to contact the office and we can arrange it for you.

Market appraisals

As our office is also has a strong focus on sales, we are able, at any time to offer a free market appraisal for your asset. This is a no obligation appraisal that will give you an idea of the value of your home in the current market.

As you can see, Merimbula Lake Real Estate offers exceptional property management services that gives our landlords peace of mind and ensures their asset is achieving maximum returns while being well cared for in the process.