In this episode I meet up with Steve Plummer who is a Strata expert at Scope. Living and breathing strata since 2003 he shares his knowledge about buying strata property - find out what you need to know if considering buying a strata property eg an apartment and what and who are buying them.
He has a methodical no nonsense approach; not a wonder in a previous life he was in the ‘job” responding to all sorts of emergencies; he gets on and gets the job done.
In this episode I meet up with Steve Plummer who is a Strata expert at Scope. Living and breathing strata since 2003 he shares his knowledge about buying strata property - find out what you need to know if considering buying a strata property eg an apartment and what and who are buying them.
He has a methodical no nonsense approach; not a wonder in a previous life he was in the ‘job” responding to all sorts of emergencies; he gets on and gets the job done.
Welcome to the property chit-chat podcast. I'm your host Louise Roque, where I talk about everything
Speaker 2:and anything property. Okay. So today I'm speaking to Steve plumber from scope start a management and, um, lots and lots of people always ask me or ask real estate agents about what to look for when they are either buying a, um, start a managed property or you know, what they need to do of the selling run. So I guess one of the main things is, um, what do you actually do?
Speaker 3:Well, thank you. Very busy man. Well, body corporate management, sort of what I, I guess I term macro property management. So we will have a group of units that may be commercial. It might be residential and they are built under a unit title. So where you have a freehold standalone property, it's called freehold title. You have a, um, a strata title or a unit title property. And that requires certain obligations under the unit titles act and regulations, um, which is where we come in and provide governance and financial reporting and that type of thing for the properties of group of owners.
Speaker 2:Okay. So if people were looking to buy it, say an apartment and it had a body court manager and all the rest of it, and they knew nothing about, um, because there's a lot of first home buyers out there for instance who maybe can't afford a freehold home. So they're looking to perhaps buy an apartment. Um, what, uh, what type of things do they, you know, do the buyer need to investigate and be aware of?
Speaker 3:Well, oftentimes the first question that's asked is what do I pay and what does it include? So that's a good starting point. Um, so when you go through your disclosure process, the body corporate owner is obliged to provide certain information. One of those is how much is the cost for the year. And also has this property been a subject of a weather type type claim, right? Uh, you need to dig a little bit further than that. I mean, it's great to have a number to work with, but what does it actually mean? So sorry, where do they get that information? They get that information as part of the disclosure. So the purchaser, sorry, the seller will be required as part of what they call a pre-contract disclosure statement to provide some information, very basic level of information to a interested parties at the beginning. And that includes the amount for the year. Um, that's about it really.
Speaker 2:So that includes the body Corp and what that includes, like the insurance.
Speaker 3:It doesn't break it down. You have to actually go a little bit further than that. So then you need to get a copy of the budget and then that will itemize the different cost elements that are part of that. One of the major cost is insurance. So the individual doesn't hold their own property insurance material, damage policy. The body corporate has a legal obligation to that for the whole building. And from there, you might have common power. It depends on the setup of the property. So it might be common power, common water gardens, and grounds cleaning a building wash each year, and things like repairs and maintenance allowances. And, you know, you're going to paint your building down the track, maybe seven to 10 years from now, and you want to put some money aside. So you'll get that information and a budget. In addition to that, you can get the financial report for the year that's just ended.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. So basically when you're talking about insurance, that just to clarify to people that doesn't include their actual insurance of their building inside, like their carpets and curtains and all that type of thing,
Speaker 3:it does. So it's what we'd call it. Landlords fixtures and fittings. So it does include your cabinets. It can include a white where it's fitted out that the main thing that you need to ensure if you're an individual owner, occupy is your content. So things that are movable, they belong to you that they're not sort of common and they're not in the state of policy for bodies.
Speaker 2:Okay. So really when you, when you see the, um, when you're talking about insurance, you probably need to go a step further and actually say, can I have a copy of the insurance policy? So you can read that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And if you have a certificate at all, talk about excesses, what's the excess on particular items, standard Xs is bigotry. That type of thing. You can get that in a one sheet and then he can go into a bit more detail and policy, and then you can speak to obviously the owner, um, because the body court manager doesn't typically speak to the purchaser because they have some certain privacy obligations.
Speaker 2:So the, the actual buyer, if they're going through a real estate agent is really relying on the real estate agent. Is that correct to supply them with this information?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And ultimately you've got, um, an agent who is working for the owner. The owner can request any information, uh, for the body corporate, from the manager, and they should get a responsive service to supply that information, but don't have it.
Speaker 2:Okay. And so basically, um, the body court, um, management, every time that somebody is selling their apartment or they actually, when they're required to give them this information, should that, does the person get charged for that? The owner,
Speaker 3:um, different companies do things slightly differently. So if I use our company example, most of the information for a property is held and our web portal owners have the excess ability to get into there, to receive all that information themselves. Um, if they don't have it or it's not in there for any reason, and they ask us, we will provide that on a, without charge,
Speaker 2:probably be using that these days one day. So you can go in there and you,
Speaker 3:yeah, there's quite a range of companies. So some do some don't. You just need to find out obviously what they hold and what you can get access to easily.
Speaker 2:What's the best way of somebody to find out some more information. Um, you know, people are worried and Auckland, obviously, if a property has been subject to where the tightness or the worry that it might have been subject to weather tightness.
Speaker 3:Yep. So, so your first step is the pre-contract disclosure, which will provide some information to you. It's just simply a one liner has, or has it not been subject of a weather on claim? It doesn't tell you whether it's a leaky or cause if you haven't had a legal claim against it, but it's a leaky. So getting minutes of our previous meetings, we'll give you some information, looking at historical financial information and finding out on there. Cause sometimes owners try and keep things quiet in their minutes. So financial information will provide if they spent a million dollars, getting lawyers involved, why was that? Why did that occur? But even more importantly, oftentimes is getting access to committee minutes, um, which are generally out there in the public domain or owner's domain getting those of that information should provide you with a bit of a clearer picture as to exactly what's happened in the last few years.
Speaker 2:What you're saying is there's minutes and then there's committee
Speaker 3:there's minutes and then there's minutes[inaudible], it's what I call hidden information. You find out about these commissions? Well, the typically not, um, just dished around, but under the know titles. And I think it's really important that people understand, I, the unit titles, ag owners are entitled to get access if they ask. So they're not just given out Willy nilly generally. Um, but if you ask then you have the right as an owner to obtain those. Um, so if you went to the owner, if you're buying the property and said, I need a copy of the last 12 months, minutes, um, they would go to the management company and the committee under the unit titles that can't withhold that information. Okay. So they should be provided.
Speaker 2:So, so basically, um, I mean, when not sort of encouraging owners to go straight to the, I mean, buyers to go straight to the owners were sort of saying, when we say owners, we really saying, it goes to the real estate agent and the real estate agent goes to the owners, that's it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. I mean, the real estate agent obviously is, is the sort of, I guess, the meat in the sandwich and dealing directly with the owners. And it's important that the real estate agent understands what's going on. I can give advice to obviously both parties as well in terms of what information there is and what information can be.
Speaker 2:They would have to actually be very, very careful what the, um, you know, that, I mean, an owner tells you something and like you said, unless you've seen, um, proof of it, then you haven't really seen anything, have you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, let's try it. And bearing in mind that properties, you know, some of them are that many multi years old and the owner who's selling may have only had it for a short period of time and they might not have done their proper homework potentially. So it's going beyond that and finding out, digging it, doing a bit of digging to try and get to the bottom of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So how are the body court fees sort of worked out yeah.
Speaker 3:Uh, body corporate fees in terms of management companies or just in general?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just in general. I mean, it is a rough guide. If somebody was looking at an apartment, you know, one compar apartment compared to another one, what are the overall, you know, why is one,$5,000 and the other ones, you know,
Speaker 3:well, you've got to look at their budgets and you gotta look at the amenities that they provide. Some, some properties have swimming pools, some have gyms, some have big Gadens up on terrorists space. That's common. So, you know, you CA no property is exactly the same as the other. Um, so oftentimes, and, and one of the other things is sometimes reflective as if the artists haven't put aside money, um, over a long period of time. And then they're now dealing with some bigger issues that need to be resolved, that they could have put money in incrementally over a period of time. Suddenly there might be a big spike in those levies. So it's about looking a little bit further into the phase. I said, into the financials, you know, what happened last year? What happened to the year before? Have they got some plan projects that are going to be underway? You know, is it going to be a painting of the building? Is there a new roof going on? And that should give you some indications, but consistently year to year, if you look at say five years of financials, you should be able to track, you know, where was the budget at? Why has it suddenly gone up if it has? And it has like potentially compared to another property would probably be a good idea to give those to an accountant, to look at it. Wouldn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Somebody who's got a keen eye on somebody who understands, um, you know, because obviously not everybody looks at financial reports quite the same way cause they don't fully understand one of, I think one of the really important things to, to try and access because different companies have different accounting procedures unfortunately, is to look at the expenses. So if you get an expense breakdown, you can start to understand what are they spending it on. Yeah. So basically, I suppose you need to ask yourself, um, what facilities do you want and then way up, you know, how much you prepared to pay for those facilities. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's interesting, like in multi rise buildings that go swimming pool, oftentimes owners go, do we really want to use us because not that many people use it for swimming, however, um, when you tend it, that's a real plus simple thing. It's a great thing to have a swimming pool, whether they use it or not. It's another whole story or a gym right now. That's interesting. So for rental return, you're probably going to get a lot more money preps if you've got, if you had a choice between a heated swimming pool or not, he swimming pool for the same amount of yeah. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So, okay. So somebody goes and sees an apartment and they have gone through it and they think, Oh yeah, this is what, what's the, what's the sort of the bare information that they need for a start that the real estate agent should be providing them then. Yeah. So as I mentioned before, pre-contract disclosure statement is an absolute, you have to have that before you can even market it. Um, I would say probably three years worth of general meetings, right. And there may be, and there may be meetings between annual general meetings as well. Um, probably two to three years of financial information, right. And that gives you a real quick snapshot asking for the, uh, committee minutes for say the last 12 months and get evaluation, see what the property's worth for reinstatement value. See what the policy says about what's covered. Cause one of the things probably important to be aware of is depending on what claims have happened in the property, um, there may be an excess it's increased, but say for example, there was a leaky roof, suddenly there's an exclusion or an increased, um, access for roof leaks. Oh, you mean for the insurance, for the insurance. So in other words, if you had a leak from the roof, they cover the first$5,000 with the damage, which typically might be a hundred to$250 exists. Now it's increased because there's been lots of claims in the past. The property manager obviously looks after a specific unit owner's property and they tend to look after the internals of that and whatever that requires, you know, making sure it's cleaned, et cetera, where the body corporate manager steps into individual apartments. As say for example, there was a leak in a shower that affected the unit below immediately. That's something we would contact the property manager or the owner and said, there's an issue. We'd also follow up the breaches of the rules with the property manager and say, this person's having wild parties at three o'clock in the morning. Can you resolve this issue please? So we liaise with, but with the apartment on are all the property manager and having good property managers who are proactive, um, makes life easier for everybody actually,
Speaker 2:definitely because I can see how that would be a problem. I mean, if you were looking at an apartment and somebody above you, didn't, wasn't bothering to fixing the shell, you know, is that sort of a, what are some of the common things that you come across actually? Uh, well, it's tends to sort of
Speaker 3:break into a few areas. One of them is things like noise, um, a Canon and people sometimes go, Oh my goodness. You know, if I got into apartment there's noise, actually, generally speaking, it's pretty quiet. The built well. And so noise transference is an issue, but occasionally you'll get somebody who's just crazy out of the box. And so the thing is those issues can be resolved. If you have a proactive body corporate manager, they will get onto it straight away. They can chat. There's additional fees that can be charged for breach of rules. For example, things like links internally and sometimes where the confusion lies between an owner's responsibility and the body corporate. So you have a responsibility to maintain your unit to make sure it doesn't affect somebody else. And that includes things like noise, making sure you're compliant. Um, so you can deal with leaks for example, um, that, that tends to be the main thing. Sometimes security issues, if there's, um, lost security access cats, and you want to make sure those deleted in time. So you need to have that proactiveness from a manager or from the tenant to make sure that those cards are notified to cancel it right. Take the interest of everybody. Those tend to be the prime prime issues.
Speaker 2:So that's probably something we forgot to mention actually, which is very important as the body court rules. And I guess really you should be looking at that straight off, especially these days about pets, what's the latest and greatest with the pets? Well, that's an interesting one
Speaker 3:because you know, we get a group of Viners who, um, some buildings love pets, you know? And so they're quite happy to accommodate some are really, really specific and, um, you know, no pets at all, not even a goldfish, right. So yes, that does flow on to complying and understanding as an owner. Typically, if you're gonna move in there, what are the obligations that I have, and it could affect your purchase. We've had decided not to buy it.
Speaker 2:I was going to say actually, because if people don't check that out and if they get told, Oh no worries, it should be okay. Or, you know, I'm sure they won't mind. Well, excuse me, you need to actually make sure that it's actually in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 3:a very emotional thing obviously, and people are very strongly attached to them. And so we've had situations where people have asked for permission as part of the purchase, but the owners have already made a clear decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's affected their decision to buy. Exactly. And I think that is a big thing you do need to check out. Cause I know that there are a lot of people, as you said, with pets out there and you need to either have a definite, you have to have a definite answer. If you're going to go, exactly. Don't bring it, bring you great Dane and expect it to be the beginning. That's right. So, um, the who, uh, actually who are buying apartments at the mall,
Speaker 3:what we've seen probably over the last five years, I'd say we've seen a, uh, certainly maybe longer than that, a significant change in the industry for two reasons. One of them is that our older people are now becoming, uh, own occupies in the past. It was an it more of an investment, right. They're seeing the value of community living and her lost and they actually make good bonds, uh, good friendships in there. And there's some really amazing properties where there's great relationships over a long period. And the other group has, um, where you've had younger couples who can't afford now standalone home. That's their first property is an apartment. And I, and I, you know, they move in, they love it. They take proactive approach to it oftentimes. Yeah. And so it actually benefits everybody. It makes us more accountable because they have a higher expectation than just a tenanted property. Um, so I think it works well actually. And that's the, that's the new trend is people buying apartments and the quality of parts is going up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, that is good. So, I mean, it's not just apartments that you look after is that, I mean, you're talking about any sort of starter property, like you said, um, you do commercial, but also you're looking at townhouses and things like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, w we do, there's a variety of sort of macro property management. Um, you know, titles is one, a big sort of move as property associations where you have free whole property, but it's tied together by say a private road and gardens and that type of thing, that's increasing sort of arrangement, very similar to have kind of body corporates are set up, but slightly different from a legal perspective. Um, you have, um, easements that, um, maybe you have just to have a road and this kind of, again, a different legal structure, cross leases for residential, particularly older sort of property that may be going to refurbish might be across lease. So we do all of those sort of bigger sort of macro management set up. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we, the quality of bills is definitely going up and the value of apartments is going up pitches, price because of the amenities that are being provided and some of these top level apartments. So we are seeing a huge shift from people who've maybe had a multi unit, multi home multimillion dollar homes moving to a multimillion dollar apartment and they love it. And, you know, you, you come to think of, and I've been on multilevel buildings and you kind of think when you're thinking about apartments, you know, everybody's standing by the lift wedding. You rarely see anybody the hallways because they all move at different times and you know, it is actually quite a couple of apartments on that one. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, there's such a spread of, you know, what do you want, do you want community living with a common amenities that you're going to meet people at and have functions with those? There's plenty of buildings out.
Speaker 2:I was just saying that seems to be quite a trend, doesn't it? Where they've got the bars and the entertainment room and all that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Then you've got commercial property at the bottom. So you might have a coffee place at the bottom of the bar and that type of thing. The restaurants. Yeah. So if that's what you're looking for, you'll find a thing that suits you. If you're looking for a bit more privacy, you know, there is apartment buildings like we manage, which is an apartment per level. So they have a lift at each level as an apartment of itself. And so, you know, you, you are in community, however, you've got privacy, you're not bumping into people in the hallway cause you have your own hallway, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Mm. So what, what do you think that people expect from a start a management company? Because, um, for instance, I had quite a bad experience months where this guy was clearly dumping his rubbish, right. And the common, um, by the common rubbish bins. And he was also, you know, running a business pretty much from his, um, double garage underneath his townhouse. And, you know, I just got no responses whatsoever. I just, I just couldn't believe it. And, um, it was a couple of other things and I just thought, look, I'm sounding like a Nokia. And you know, you really hate doing that, but you know, there was only 10 townhouses and it was just, it was just a nice eyesore. And I just, I just couldn't believe that. But, um, you know, you bring out the body court person and there was just no action taken. So, you know, people get pretty irate when they're living in some place and this is going on. So what, what should we expect from you, Steve?
Speaker 3:Well, I th I think it's a fair point because you know, the industry is unregulated. So you do get people who are, I guess cowboyish, gosh, sometimes they don't charge a lot and you don't get the service that you should or you expect. And it's pretty hard when they're getting paid very little to expect them to be providing a rolls Royce service, so to speak. But I guess what we're looking for is a fair cost and we can get that further if you want, but a fair cost transparency, proactive approach. So it doesn't mean that your body court matter is going to be down there every day of the week. But when you call or when you email, you expect a response. So for our company, I say to my staff and I do it to myself as well. If somebody concepts today, we will respond today. That's what I expect. And I expect that of myself. I expect that of my staff. So a proactive approach, a responsive service I'm open and transparent. So people know what they're paying for. They know the expenses, there's nothing hidden. Um, unfortunately there is companies who don't provide that. So just using your example of a, of a breach of rules, the first thing that should have happened is, okay, this is a serious issue because there's a responsibility on that other owner or slash tenant to comply with the rules. You have the right to private and quiet and peaceful enjoyment. And that includes people following the rules, it's noise, or whether it's dumping rubbish or whatever the other issues are. Um, and therefore they should have been followed up. And the committee, if they had a committee in place typically are concerned about that, maybe it was a committee member who knows, but, you know, so in other words, you have, this should have the support of the committee. And not only that, you actually have the legal support for that issue to be resolved. Um, so you have an ability, if you weren't happy with the response to take the body corporate to the tenancy tribunal, it's not a cheap process, but you do have that. So you have legal suit and legal rights that you have that body corporate has student legal responsibilities that they have to comply with. One of those ensuring that people are complying with the rules, right? So there is a process to the end and the body corporate can charge costs on to the person who's responsible
Speaker 2:Oh, onto the person who's responsible eventually as an economic patient. It's a lot of stress though, for people. Isn't it. So really at the end of the day, I mean, um, what costs should, should be transparent. I mean, you know, if you were going, cause basically if you've got an apartment that you like, and you've got, you're stuck with the body corporate and, you know,
Speaker 3:you bought a unit title and yeah. So typically you will, if you have a unit title, some, some properties, smaller properties, maybe self-managed there's issues with that as well. In my opinion, in my experience, my opinion. However, um, the thing is that there is a change, there is a shift in the market. There's a more of a compliance requirements coming from management companies. Thank goodness by the sounds of that. Yeah. Well you do. I mean, we, we pick up, you know, probably 60% of our work is taking over work from badly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because I'm quite surprised. Cause I knew that the property management, um, didn't have to be, um, you know, compliant. Well, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, yeah, that had to be regulated. Yes. Yes. Um, but I, I must have met, I just sort of assumed that maybe this 10, for some reason,
Speaker 3:that was one option, um, where the previous government was looking at options around it. But in the end they felt that it wasn't probably required as a regulation. I personally, I think it should be, um, because there's some capital is out, as I mentioned before and I hate to say it, but you could be a mafia.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, I know you, you want to have trusted the person. It is very much about relationships and the only way you can build a good relationship is to prove yourself, otherwise, it's you at your experience? Wasn't, I'm not getting anywhere. Who are these? Yeah, exactly. What am I paying for?
Speaker 3:It's a valid question. And ultimately that's what drives change. And there is certainly more expectation now in the market about service delivery. And there's more of a willingness now to change from badly managed companies. Uh, simply because that's the expectation and because more people are moving into apartments and owning them, they have a,
Speaker 2:yeah, I was just gonna say requirement. And if you're not performing, you shouldn't be in exactly. So let's just say that in that I'm looking at this apartment and I've heard quite bad things about the management and um, the committee meetings perhaps, and the notes that said a couple of things, but nobody seems to be doing anything about it. I mean, it's, it must be quite a hassle to change, start a company. And what's involved in that.
Speaker 3:It's actually not that hard to change. Um, the thing is about finding a driver. So if somebody's a committee about change, the first thing that they typically have is they don't have a knowledge about how to change. Oh my goodness. My stock. So the person or persons that they approaching for an alternative service generally can help you through that process. Like we do, you know, I was just on the phone this morning with somebody who was frustrated with the changeover. Um, they've decided to change to us and they're getting the run around. So I will step in if I need to, um, and push as well and I can give guidance. We can draft letters, that sort of thing. Ultimately, um, you know, it's your property, it's your money. You need to be happy. And I would say if a person or persons and not experiencing a good service that will flow on to others, the committee will know that as well.
Speaker 2:So is this, is this person I'm part of a group that have said we're over it. And we wanted go somewhere else. So is that the story there? Cause it can't just be one person Kevin.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, so I mean, it seems to be a majority wouldn't it does. Absolutely. And, and so a majority of unhappy people, you do often still need one person who says, you know what, I'm going to make this happen because I've had a guts full. And that tends to be what happens is somebody just has enough. And so they, everybody else, you know, Kiwis, they're a little bit empathetic. They'll put up with bad service and it's a, it's amazing how long they put it up
Speaker 2:because I must admit I spent 20 years in Australia and I was in the job as well. Actually, Steve, I saw that you were, so I'm just saying to Steve at the moment for the listeners out there, that he was in the police and that's why he's the man for the job, because basically, you know, you you've got stuff to do. You need to do it and you get on with it. Yeah. So I must say coming back to New Zealand, um, years ago, uh, I was quite surprised what they do put up with and you really don't need to because
Speaker 3:no, and, and, and the good thing is that they under the new unit titles act, um, which is 2010, 2011, but there's also some amendments to, to happen as well at Fiddler and power owners in terms of their own property and decision making processes. You know, a lot of people fear what they don't know or don't understand
Speaker 2:exactly. It's a matter of, and anybody can go in and Google that anyway, can't they, I mean, they can look at the act and just, I mean, I, it might sound like gobbledygook to them, but at least it will give you an idea. And then, you know, okay, so I'm sick to death of this place. And I've said to my, my, my committee members look, we're out of here. So come on, what are we doing?
Speaker 3:Okay. So what you do is you, um, hopefully come to us as a company and we'll provide you with some advice. We'll provide you with a proposal. We just need a little bit of detail from you. So we can give you something, um, that you can understand in terms of what our prices, what we are going to deliver to you, et cetera. And then we'll give you a sort of a pathway to change. Now, whether you come to us or not, at the end of the day, we'll help you as best we can to find a process that suits you to change.
Speaker 2:That's great. So you're offering some advice out there to people who don't know where to go. Cause like we said, you only know what you know, and you don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately, I mean, it's great if we pick up your property, but ultimately my main focus and I get contacted by people out of the blue all the time, just asking for some advice, I don't ask them what property is. If they don't ask for proposal, I just give them the advice. And I'm hopeful that that can help.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's what I say in real estate. You know, I used to get people ringing me up about the Island all the time and this, that, and the other thing, and, you know, I wasn't interested and you know, it's, it's a longterm thing, isn't it? Customer service is a long. Yeah,
Speaker 3:absolutely. And I mean, we've got enough on in terms of workload. We're not freaking out about whether we pick up this one or not. Ultimately for me, it's about improving the standard of the industry and yes, if we're helpful to people they'll remember that down the track. And ultimately it's about pulling up the industry and improving it across the board. And if we can do a good service expectations of service and you know, will be lifted. Um, and ultimately we were, they really, in my view as an advocate, even if it's not a property of advantage. Right.
Speaker 2:And I think the other thing is to document things, as far as these people who actually might have, you know, a recurring, um, complaint or something that's going on, that's not being addressed. I think it's important to actually, and correct me if I'm wrong, obviously, but, um, important to actually in an email contact the body corporate. So, you know, you have proof that you have actually contacted them about things. Um, and if nothing's getting resolved that, that sort of evidence later on down the check, if you need it, doesn't it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. The one I was dealing with this morning is exactly what happened, that they weren't happy with the manager and folded it up. And then I was copied in at some point to some human communication. And it was quite interesting just to see how much of a lack of response lead had to Sutent.
Speaker 2:Well, I just, I had emailed a few times and I actually got no email back and you know, that's one thing I used to say to people is that, look, if you're busy or whatever, just say, Hey, listen, I got your email. Um, and I'll be on time. Look, I'm busy for a couple of days or whatever, but it's, it's that not knowing that you've actually don't even deserve a reply. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 3:and, and, and it's, it is quite funny actually getting emails from, you know, new clients and they go, Oh, thank you for being so quick to respond to them. Well, that's, that's normally how we respond to that, you know, because they've been so dissatisfied or lack of response. And to me that that's not customer service, you know, what, what are you in business for you're in business to support your customers and that they have a good experience. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And have you found most of the property managers that you've dealt with have been pretty good?
Speaker 3:Um, we don't have a massive amount of dealing with them to be honest, our frustration probably I've got one at the moment off the top of my head actually, um, where they're taking the money and they're really not doing anything else. People are the property manager, the property manager, property managers. So, so the is overseas. We only have communication with the property manager and they really not doing anything and they're not doing their own or any favors because they're off to the tenancy tribunal shortly on a breach issue. Um, yeah, quite, quite an interesting situation. And you do need a proactive property manager who actually understands what's going on on your unit and actually cares about it because it's a very stressful job,
Speaker 2:but you know, it, it isn't for everybody. Um, but if you are going to do any job, I think, you know, you need to actually give a stuff don't you really, you know,
Speaker 3:absolutely. There's no point in being in the role that you're in. If you don't care, just go find something else.
Speaker 2:I think, you know, as a, um, as an owner is sort of soon sought that out, don't you, if somebody is actually communicating with you and what about car parks? Do you, I mean, starting a, that covers the car parks and everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So car packs usually, uh, what they call accessory units. So they are tied into the principle unit that you're buying. So you'd get one to have any cap Hawks. So that's another thing that people obviously need to check out because quite often they've actually got a separate price attached to them that, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, if you can swap between units within a property carpark, so sometimes somebody will sell it another compact, somebody else who's got a unit in the property. Um, but otherwise it is sold as, as part of that. It's, it's not usual to separate out and say, well, you can buy the unit. Plus you can buy the cap ex only a whole number unless they sell a car pack separately to another family being in the building. So it's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting dynamic, certainly in Oakland where they're building buildings now with no requirement to have cat box. So, you know, I've got a building in the center of town that has no car parks. People are used to it, they have their bicycles, they got a bicycle wreck, but certainly no car packs. And we've got a new build is underway at the moment would be the tallest apartment building in New Zealand. Um, that'd be finished next year. So they've got a, a valet service of cat packs, cat pack lifts. And you can't actually go into the car park, you get your[inaudible] on the ground. So packed up the top, right at the top, you can see a few levels. So you just leave it to the, yeah. So you'd want to hope the LA guy's good at doing what he's done. Busy job. I'm sure. Three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:So, um, okay. So the last thing Steve is, um, so if there are people out there that are disgruntled really, you need to, um, how much notice would you need to give your current body court person? And also what about all the transference of, you know, all the
Speaker 3:files and money? Yeah. So I mean, the first thing obviously is if you're dissatisfied is go out and seek some pricing, that's the first thing any of those companies should be competent enough to tell you the process and to help you along the way so
Speaker 2:that they need to be ticking off that the company is being transparent and telling you, okay,
Speaker 3:so references is a good start. Um, normally people aren't going to give you references of it's a positive, but maybe, um, references from the area you could say, well, you know, this is a property in X location. Can you give us some properties around the local area here that kind of ties it into a bit more specifics to that? How long has the company been in business for, if you Google the company's name and then put legal cases or something like that, you might find this. And there is a few companies that have got history, um, in that sense. And so you can do a little bit of a background check, obviously having a good rapport with the person who you're dealing with in terms of the proposal is good to eyeball them as well. And I'm just, you know, try and get the vibe for close people.[inaudible] so there's a few of those processes and obviously having knowledge, background experience in the industry, et cetera. And I've been in the industry since 2003, and I've seen a lot of people come and go I'm in that period of time, it's a tough job.
Speaker 2:I'm going to ask you, how long have you been in the industry for? So you've got, she got 14 years. That'd be sleeve that's that's a long time. So you've seen a lot of changes, especially. Um, well look at the changes in how many apartments and, and starter.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I was just driving, just driving across the bridge this morning and looking at all the cranes on the horizon. It was quite staggering, really amazing. It's so it's not going away and there's a lot more infill housing, you know, body corporate stuff. So, you know, you know, titles is not going to disappear. It's going to be more and more of it. And you know, so people, some people are never going to be keen to move into apartments. Totally understand that. Um, but there was certainly an increasing trend in Sydney, around young people. There's really limited choices in Oakland. I think future-wise with costs.
Speaker 2:And plus like you said, I mean, you know, you take out the fact that you need a vehicle really. I mean, you know, we've got Uber and all these things going on and like you said, electric bicycles and everything. I mean, that's a huge expense anyway, and you can lock up and leave and go traveling. I mean, there's so many advantages isn't there. I think, um, as long as you have got sort of the size that you are looking at, and
Speaker 3:yeah, I think the main thing is, you know, and we deal with developers who have this idea as well. Cheap levees does not mean anything. If you're paying next to nothing and levies, then I would say you're probably underpaying. You know, you need to be looking at the budget and saying, are all the things that I would expect if it was in my own property covered in here? Are we actually putting money aside for a rainy day for when things like the roof happens? If you're not, you know, you can Pat yourself on the back and say, well, I'm paying low body corporate fees, but somebody's going to come calling at some point and go,
Speaker 2:yeah. I mean, that's a really good point actually, because I just thought that it was something that everybody did. So what you're saying is is that some strata management companies aren't doing that, they're not actually putting good grief
Speaker 3:or even developers developers will out keep budgets low because they want to sell it. But anybody's yeah, you're entitled to put for it's amazing minimal amounts certain and yeah, we, we pushed back on developers, but ultimately they will make the first call on the budget. And, but if you're buying in you, you should have a gut feeling. It just doesn't, it just sounds too low. Yes. So just to clarify that, what we're talking about is that your body corporate fees also include a rainy day, so to speak. And I can't remember thinking funded or longterm maintenance, long term maintenance or sinking fund that typically called. If you, if you look on a, uh, on a sheet of accountancy stuff, that's what they might be referred to. And it's saying that at some stage money needs to be continually put aside. So when something in the building needs to be done, like an exterior wash or the roof replaced, or what are, what are some other things that could happen? Oh, it depends on the property. And it might be, um, you know, there's common power. Sometimes it's artificially kept low for the first year. You know, there's a whole bunch of things that could occur. Um, is your garden and grounds allowing for things like remolding or is it just for the basics, you know, who is doing the gardening, who is doing the maintenance and all that sort of thing. Exactly. So, so there's a lot of those things that just need to be looked at. And the average person looking at that would go there just doesn't seem bright for the size property and maybe it is right, but it's looking a little bit deeper into that. Um, and not getting caught off guard really to some degree by comparing all that body corporate levies of as a new build, for example, are really, really low that like half the price, there may be reasons for it. There may be amenities that you haven't thought about, or one body corporate is budget may be super low. She calls the developer has created sort of an, almost an artificial budget. And you got to just be mindful of that when you're looking at your costs. Wow, that's fantastic. Steve, that gives people a really, really good idea of'em to do their investigations and that it is an unregulated industry, um, and that you really need to, um, you know, look into it before you do do it. Do your homework and hope your phone doesn't explode tonight. Well, we aren't, we are obviously happy to help and give a little bit of guidance to people, whether they're looking at a new build, uh, purchase or whether they are looking into buy into an existing property and may just be a little bit uncertain of what they're looking at, or obviously if they want to change or thinking of changing and needs a bit of direction. Thank you so much. Great time, most welcome. That's really, really helpful for people. Thank you. Bye.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed this episode of property. Chit-chat subscribe to hear all our episodes. If you want further information, visit good tonic.co dot INSEAD and hit the property. Chit-chat tip till next time over and out.