There are preconceptions that real estate agents are all about money and don’t have a heart for the vulnerable sectors in society. An insider perspective in the person of Laura Valenti breaks these notions.
Laura is involved in two organisations: as Board Director of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) and the Co-principal and Managing Director of McGrath North Lakes. As part of the latter, she manages about 1,500 properties around the north side of Brisbane, the Moreton Bay region, and a smaller number in Logan and Ipswich. She is heavily involved in managing and overseeing the property management team to make sure everything goes right.
At the 7th National Housing and Homelessness Forum, Laura is part of a fireside chat that will tackle cross-sector collaboration for ensuring stable tenancies and housing solutions. Third Sector sat down with her to tell us a little bit more about the topic at hand.
What are the challenges of forming and sustaining three-way partnerships between the private sector, service providers and tenants?
At McGrath North Lakes, we deal a lot with the social sector and tenants. The major challenge I have found is the lack of consistency in the people with whom we deal.
The way we work and the way the social sector works are very different. We are extremely task-focused and time-sensitive. If we don’t find someone for a property in 1-2 days, we start getting lots of pressure from our clients to find tenants. And let’s say we have good applicants who may have come from crisis accommodation or been homeless, whom we want to put in the property. They still have to go through all the same processes and apply like everybody else. We have to make sure that they will be able to afford the rent and be good tenants.
But because they will get assistance from the caseworkers, sometimes that is inconsistent because the caseworkers might not be working for a couple of days. We have to do things as soon as possible to keep things moving. It’s no one’s fault; it’s just how the social sector has evolved, with a lot of volunteers and people only working part-time.
However, real estate and property management have evolved very differently. It’s a very competitive market, not just for tenants but also for us. If we don’t do our job properly or make a couple of mistakes (or even one mistake), there are many agents out there ready to take the business from us. Owners and landlords will just go to another agency if we don’t provide them with their expected results, or they perceive that we have not worked 100% for them.
What are the practical strategies to align goals and priorities across all stakeholders to deliver cohesive, outcome-driven housing solutions?
We are involved in a couple of programs, and one is the program that inCommunity is piloting, wherein we work with the tenants that we already have in place. If we find that the tenancy is failing for whatever reason – they might be late with their rent or their property is not being looked after satisfactorily – then we engage with local organisations.
With consent, these organisations will come in and provide some assistance, whether that’s obtaining government financial incentives or helping them understand that they have to keep the property well-presented. We like involving ourselves with programs like that because we know we’re all working for the same cause, which is to sustain tenancies and keep tenants in place.
If the tenant is being asked to leave at the end of the lease because their tenancy is failing, then that’s a problem for everyone. That’s a lose-lose situation. Everyone needs to know that we don’t want to kick tenants out or see them leave with nowhere to go. We want to help people feel comfortable and safe in their homes, as well as pay their rent, as the owners have to pay their mortgage. We like dealing with the social organisations to try to obtain help for the tenants.
Apart from the emotional aspect of having to see a tenant move out and not having anywhere to go, it’s a lot of work. The work involved in vacating a tenant, fixing and cleaning the property up and then putting in new tenants is huge, and any kind of fees that we obtain from the owner for placing a new tenant don’t even cover our resources or costs.
We are also involved with The Priority Project, which is in conjunction with Mission Australia and the Salvation Army. That’s been a very successful pilot, which has been running for 18 months. We’re prioritising domestic and family violence survivors and their families to move into rental properties when they’re ready to move out of the crisis accommodation, but there’s nothing around due to the rental crisis.
If they pass our criteria and have enough income to sustain their tenancy, then we can put them in as tenants before the property goes out to the open market. We do this because once it goes out to the open market and we start advertising it online, we have dozens of applications and many people who want to look through them.
I love practical strategies. I don’t like sitting and talking about the problem. I want solutions. I feel that real estate agents are in a perfect position to try to assist vulnerable tenants or keep them in their tenancies. Maybe we just have to take that extra effort of looking through an application to give people a go, or see if there are external challenges affecting tenants’ rental history.
We have time constraints as well. We have all these applications to process and need to get a property tenanted. But what we’re trying to do is to consider those who might have a poor rental history for a reason. A big reason would be that they have a domestic and family violence background. Their rental history is not of their own doing, so as agents, we can take a little bit of time and look into their background and consider other references.
The crisis accommodation where they’re living might give a reference and say that they’re keeping the property beautifully and paying their rent on time. So, we can build a picture of what kind of person this tenant is without the stigma of the poor rental history coming into play.
How can collaboration with the private sector overcome barriers, build trust and create innovative pathways for stable tenancies?
We need to collaborate because we have the properties, and the social sector has the clients. If we can collaborate and link together, and the social sector can provide references and assistance for tenants, then that’s how we’re going to bridge that gap.
From my perspective, a lot of real estate agents are happy to work with the social sector. The way that the social sector is organised is a bit of a mystery to most people. I’m still trying to get my head around how everything is structured and connected – it’s like a spider web. Who do I go to help this person? For example, we’ve got a tenant who has some mental health issues. Who do I refer them to? I might email one of my contacts, and it might take me half an hour to find the right person to assist.
After five minutes, most property managers will give up. It’s too hard. We’ve got so many things crying out for our attention. Our main focus is trying to do our job and complete thousands of tasks in a day. If it takes me half an hour, considering that I know a little bit about the sector and have contacts, imagine the average property manager out there. We just want quick, easy solutions. Give us a list, a number and an email address, click and take me to where I can get assistance instantly. It is very confusing for all of us.
From my experience, the social sector has been a little bit wary of dealing with us as the private sector. There are preconceptions that we don’t care and just work for the landlords. But most property managers do have a social conscience and want to help. If there is a way to help the tenancy without spending hours and hours on it, then they would happily do it. It’s just a question of resources. We don’t have any extra time to do something outside of what we normally do. We aren’t monsters. We do have a heart. We do understand.
Many property managers are tenants. A couple of property managers on my staff are tenants. So, they understand and have the same fears and challenges as any other tenants. We all have to understand that we’re coming from the same intention. And if the tenancy ends, hopefully that means it’s because the tenant wants to leave and not that we’re asking them to leave. That’s the best possible scenario. I would love for the social sector to approach and be willing to deal with real estate agents. And hopefully, the agents will respond positively.
We have had to attend warrants of possession where we have to see a family move out, and we go home crying because we see kids there, and it’s not their fault that they’re being kicked out or evicted. On the other side, thousands of dollars are owed to the landlord, and they can’t sleep at night because they’ve got to pay their mortgage. We’re in a challenging situation.
Is there anything you want to add or highlight? What should people look forward to in your session?
Real estate agents manage about 95% of the rental properties in Queensland. There’s not enough social housing for all the people who need it, so we need the two sectors to evolve and merge together and keep an open mind to collaborating.
If the social sector has a client who’s applying for a property, ask the property manager what the owner is looking for. How can we make this application stronger? A little bit of background about that person and why they’re homeless or in crisis accommodation would help. Tell us a story so that we can then take that to the property owner.
Property owners also have hearts. And we have a lot of landlords who have put their property into The Priority Project property register to invite women with DV backgrounds to apply for their properties before they go to the open market.
And we have a good success rate of owners who would like to help. Sometimes, I ask what made them want to put their property into this project. Some would say that they themselves had been in a DV situation in the past and had nowhere to go. They want to pay it forward and help a woman in that situation. They might have a consideration and offer a slightly lower rent, but they don’t have to. We still do all the checks and make sure that they’re going to be a good tenant.
Many property owners are community-minded. Yes, they want their investment to work and get their rent, but a lot of them also love that feeling that the tenant in their property is being helped and their life is being improved and saved. They are people like you and me; they just happen to own property as an investment.
Again, I’d like everyone to keep an open mind and not listen to or be swayed by past prejudices or biases about who we are as property managers. There’s a small percentage of agents who should not be in this industry, but by and large, most of us want to do the right thing. We want to do our job properly and go home knowing that we’ve done the best job possible.
Catch Laura Valenti and colleagues to know why and how sectors should collaborate to ensure long-term tenancy sustainment. Register for the Housing and Homelessness Forum here.
Geraldine is currently the Content Producer for Third Sector, an Akolade channel. Throughout her career, she has written for various industries and international audiences. Her love for writing extends beyond the corporate world, as she also works as a volunteer writer at her local church. Aside from writing, she is also fond of joining fun runs and watching musicals.
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