Does rental management in Australia differ from other countries

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As a general rule, you can expect to pay between 5% to 10% of the monthly rent plus GST to arrange rental management in Australia.

Rental property management costs will vary depending on the location of your property.

The services included in the rental property management fees can vary greatly between agencies. Most include weekly rent collection, maintenance (excluding insurance claims), and two property inspections a year under the commission they charge. However, some agencies require that you pay extra for many of those services.

Before choosing your property manager, make sure that you find out exactly what services are included and which will incur extra fees.

Depending on the rental management agency, you may need to pay additional fees to cover:

• Letting and lease renewals
• Lease transfer fees
• Admin fees
• Tribunal attendances and evictions
• End of financial year statements
• Marketing fees to attract potential tenants
• Dealing with insurance claims
• Property inspections

If you are a landlord looking for more information about rental management in Australia, you can read our article on property management fees. This provides advice on what costs you can expect to incur as part of your management fee.

You can also read more about property management inspections in Australia, including a checklist with everything that should be covered on a routine inspection.

Rental Management in the U.S

Rental management costs in the U.S vary depending on the state, but on average, the cost is somewhere between 8% to 12% of the monthly rent plus expenses.

Common additional fees charged by rental management agencies in the U.S are:

Vacant Unit fee: this comes into place when engaging the services of a property manager while a property is vacant. The cost is usually 1 month’s rent upfront, and normally covers advertising costs, showings, and lease paperwork.

New placement fee: Some rental property management agencies charge a fee when they get a new tenant into a property.

Maintenance fees: some agencies include standard maintenance services in their monthly fees and charge extra for any out of the ordinary services (labor costs plus materials)

Eviction: Most property managers will charge a fee to go through the process of evicting a tenant (typically $200-$500 plus any applicable court costs)

Rental Management in New Zealand

Property management is unregulated in New Zealand. As such, there are no specific requirements to become a property manager, and there is no legislation to oversee the services they provide. This is unless property managers are also real estate agents, in which case they are governed by the rules that regulate that industry.

The average fee charged by property managers in New Zealand ranges from between 7.5% and 8.5% percent of the rent.

However, landlords in New Zealand can expect to pay additional charges for:

• Carrying out credit checks
• Advertising/marketing
• Handling payments of rates, insurance and other accounts on behalf of the owner
• Administration fees (from $10 to $20 per month)
• Property inspection fees (from $30 to $50)
• Attending Tenancy Tribunal hearings or mediations (charged at an hourly rate)

Rental Management in Canada

 When you contract a property management firm in Canada, you can expect to pay a commission of somewhere between 6% to 12% of the rental income.

Alternatively, there are also some companies that charge a flat rate per month, especially when the rent charged is relatively low.

Additional rental property management fees normally include:

Maintenance charges: normally charged as a call-out fee

• New tenant fees: normally 50% of the tenant’s first month’s rent
• Eviction charges: between $200 and $500 per eviction
• Vacant unit charges: one month’s rent (this will cover advertising, showings, and paperwork)

Rental Management in the UK

In the UK, letting agents will normally operate on a “no let, no fee” basis. There are 3 different levels of services offered by rental management agencies:

Tenant-find only fees: they tend to be charged as either a flat fee equal to around one month’s rent, or as a percentage of the entire tenancy contract. This will cover the costs of finding tenants, doing references, collecting a deposit and putting together the tenancy agreement.

Tenant find + rent collection fees: this service typically cost landlords around 8-12% of the monthly rent collected. This service involves the property manager collecting rent every month and chasing late payments.

Full management fees: this will typically cost 10-15% of the monthly rent collected. It will normally include the services listed above plus taking care of maintenance and repairs, as well as acting as the point of contact for tenants.