Fee Rejection

Would love to hear everyone’s experiences with fee rejections.

The majority of our new business comes from referrals so we have never really had that much fee rejection. However, in the last six months we are experiencing quite a lot and I am finding it both concerning and really frustrating. By no means are we a cheap fee agency but our fees do sit on par with the majority of the market.

I have gone over my listing presentations to see if there is something I am not doing or are doing to cause this fee objection but have come up with nothing.

I am finding more and more people get put off by the number of fees Property Managers charge such as letting, lease renewal, management fee, routine inspection fee.

So I wonder how many agents are offering an all inclusive fee?

I offered an all inclusive fee at an appraisal this morning and was quite excited by the response I received. The appraisal was for two brand new properties and the owners found all the fees a bit overwhelming. I knew they were feeling this way so before the appraisal I worked out the cost of our total annual fee including management fee, letting fee, routine inspection fee and simply divided this into a weekly amount which in this case was $60 per week. I offered this to them and sold it to them that they will not only start to see income much sooner than having to pay the letting and advertising fee from the first few weeks rent but long term it assists with the cash flow of their property. They were really excited by this.

My question to the forum is for those people who do this how does it affect your business cash flow? Does it work for the business better or just the owner?

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Hi Kimberly,

A great question, and exciting to see some traction on it. Wendell Property do offer an all inclusive fee, its a great offering to have for your risk adverse clients, and as you say it works well from a cashflow point of view!

We carefully looked at the costings to make sure that it met at least our averages. The bonus of this style fee system is consistency of income, (it makes your P&L’s very predictable) it also increases the value of your book which is typically calculated from Management Fees.

But I would love to hear some other thoughts on this also.

Fee rejection is something that we are seeing more and more in the Auckland Market, it is common as peoples belts tighten based on external market reasons.

Thanks for sharing.

Ashley

What a great idea. I don’t know if it’s a new idea but one I haven’t heard of before. I too am interested in everyone’s thoughts or their process.

The Gold Coast are near breaking point as to how low the agents will go to get the management.

I hadn’t thought of the PW$ amount but that is great for their budget.

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Hi @kimberley.yeeles There is a deeper process here ‘beyond’ the 1 Fee offering. The 1 fee has been in and out of fashion over the years and some businesses have found their niche with it. And as @ashley.giles mentioned it also smooths out your income and bypasses the very manual process of charging lease renewal fees that are often missed. The source of fee objection is that a customer doesn’t see values in the fees you are charging. Take the lease renewal fee; The landlord thinks you just shoot out a new lease to the tenant. Show them the entire process and how this process benefits them. e.g. we do a comprehensive CMA to ensure we are renewing the lease at maximum market value. If you miss out on $10 per week that’s double the lease renewal fee you have missed out on. The same goes for your base fee. Break it down and show them where the value is;

This topic is one of the biggest systemic problems we have as an industry and it is driven by the lemons market mentality. The consumer can’t see the difference between property management businesses from the outside so only have fees to compare them on. This means that’s the only tool they have for negotiating. Through sharing your systems and the benefit these have maximizing returns and quality tenants for their investment, you can dismiss fee objections and sell on your service offering.

@tom A great one for you to read coming into your new role! Very cool guys…

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