Cosmo – I quite obviously have strong views on the subject of Rental Agents / Property Managers, and I’ve probably gone on about it enough.
But to answer your questions, the Office of Fair Trading (in NSW) has downloadable copies of Tenancy Agreements, Condition Reports, and Fact Sheets and you also can download a selection of tenancy applications from most Agents’ websites.
If Owner / Landlords hosted an “open-home”, eye-balled potential applicants, issued the application form to those, took 15 minutes to peruse each completed one received to short-list, and then spent a further 30 minutes checking referees, then they’d be doing considerably more than most Rental Agents / Property Managers would.
As for the “banned tenants’ register”, I’d suggest to you that those are severely compromised and therefore of little if any value – refer to the 6th para of my original post (#2).
I haven’t been a landlord since the ’80s, but as “rental facilitator” for each of our sons and their wives (3), and as the Sec. of a medium-sized Plan where almost 80% of Units are rented, I’d suggest to you that I get a better then average perspective of how properties are “managed” (not) from both the perspective of Owners and from Tenants.
I should reiterate that I’m referring to the performance of most Rental Agents / Property Managers as there are obviously some good and competent ones out there.
I appreciate that initiating self-management of a property is sometimes limited by distance unless there’s a “facilitator” available, however from what I’ve observed even tenants would prefer to deal directly with their Landlord – to the great benefit of both parties.