PM Collective - The ART of property management
The ART of property management with Ashleigh Goodchild is a leading platform supporting collaboration not competition through an online community and events throughout the year with one purpose: to create happier property managers. She creates connections for property managers looking to create momentum in their careers and personal life. Join Ashleigh and her guests as they discuss challenges, struggles, mental health, mindset and give advice to property managers and anyone in the industry. To get the support in your property management career, join our PM Collective Facebook and Instagram community.
PM Collective - The ART of property management
Part 2: Promoting change and connection in the real estate and DV community
Philanthropic investing is reshaping the property landscape by creating opportunities for both investors and families in need. The conversation highlights the role of property managers in fostering connections while challenging stereotypes of investors.
• Exploring the true meaning of philanthropic investing
• Understanding investors' motivations and perspectives
• The crucial role of property managers in connecting families and properties
• Real stories illuminating the impact on women and families
• Navigating challenges in implementing philanthropic programs
• Addressing common misconceptions about investors
• Encouraging open conversations within the community
• The call to action for more impact agents to join the cause
• Creative business solutions to foster philanthropic investments
• Celebrating successful partnerships and positive outcomes
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So let's step into the philanthropic investors, and I have been known to say that every single time we do an article, you do an article, someone comes forward and exactly what you just said people want to help. They just didn't know that this was an option. So philanthropic investing, from my point of view, is an investor who is in a position to be able to accept a lower than market rate for their property and also an investor who is wanting to give back, and they can do that through property. And we see this a lot with very old school owners and I actually have some on my books as well. I've got an owner he's not one of my philanthropic clients, but he sort of is, and he owns about 15 properties and when we go do a rent increase, I remember once he said to me do not be mean with my rent increase this year, ash, and I wasn't being mean, but it was like but you can get this much per week and he does not feel comfortable because he's of that old school mentality. He does not feel comfortable at all taking, you know, 300 a week for a property when 200 is perfectly fine for him and obviously all his rents that are renewed are all at the lower end because that's his financial position. That's what sits comfortably with him.
Speaker 1:I also do want to stress, though, with investors, is that every investor is in a different position and, as a property manager, even just having that discussion with your new clients when they come on board, to let them know that you also have a philanthropic program if it's something that suits them. If not, this is the market rate. Just giving people the options is number one, super helpful, and let them decide, because you don't know what their financial position is like, you don't know what their experience is like. We've had people that have had children, that have gone through DV and have gone. You know what. This is what I want to do to give back. So who are we to? Just assume that they want the traditional way, like again, thinking outside the box? Why wouldn't you just give them that second option and just see what happens, create the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely create the opportunity for investors and yeah, I think you'll be surprised at how many come forward. So we the from a property manager point of view, like obviously we've got the philanthropic clients. They help you by providing a significant I want to say significant amount. Less Generally the way the conversation will go from my point of view. So with with Arana, the families do need to have a property manager involved, like a landlord can't be privately managing the tenancy, so that's still the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good for everyone.
Speaker 1:Yep. And then we generally the conversation we would have with the clients is what, what do you need Like, what's the minimum you need, so they know what their mortgage is, what their bills are, what they're comfortable with. We generally let them come to us, but we do say to them listen, most families in the program have an affordability. Say between you know, don't quote me on this, maybe it's 400 to 500 a week. Yeah, perfect, that's accurate. Great, I should have checked that with you before I put you in that position yeah, perfect, it's accurate, great I should have checked that with you before I put you in that position.
Speaker 1:So then we would say that's where most families can afford. So if you can get back to me with what you're comfortable with and we can see whether it works, and then they will say, yep, actually I would need $480,000. No worries, we'll put that forward to you. We've got this property in this suburb. Owner wants $480 per week. Do you have a family that this would suit? Yeah, and it's as simple as that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it works exactly like that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the way that it's looked after is exactly the way every tenancy would be, except we are not needing to advertise the property, we're just putting it straight through to Arana. You guys find a family that it suits. The application still gets done, though it's not really processed. It's just a formality Lease agreement, property condition report, all of it's done as a normal tenancy would be done, and the only bit that we're shortcutting is the fact that we're not advertising it on the current market and we are accepting a tenancy application, not sifting through 100 of them and not sifting through 100.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no it's great, it's pretty easy. I think so. Also, it acts as an additional reference because we know these women. Yeah, you know, we know how they live, we've seen how they care for their property, we know a bit about their background and we know that they're housing ready, so it's an extra layer of security. If you compared that, perhaps, with someone who might be, you know, presenting really strongly because they've got a big FIFO income, for example, they're barely home. They've got a big dog. When they come home, they're having big parties, they're, you know, doing all kinds of things that are a property manager's nightmare. That's not the case with these women. These are women who've got, you know, usually one or two young kids and they're just trying to as you mentioned earlier, reconnect with community, get their kids back to school, get everything back on track.
Speaker 3:They're working, they're studying, they're rebuilding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is going into and I apologise actually to you two because I haven't really gone through those questions that you have.
Speaker 2:You have not at all.
Speaker 1:That you have so well prepared for, and I'm putting you on the spot, but you're both doing very, very well, I haven't flipped the page once.
Speaker 2:No, no.
Speaker 3:It's good because I've got my reading glasses anyway. Fantastic, excellent.
Speaker 1:So we probably haven't got to the point of, because the program maybe hasn't been done long enough for us to sort of have these case studies. But one thing as a property manager I do focus on, because my priority I understand your priority is definitely the families and my priority is the investor, as much as obviously it is your families as well, but really it does come down to the investor. That's who I'm looking after. So I have tried to have really good conversations with them to understand their responsibilities, making sure that they're suitable for the program, but also to have the understanding that the purpose of this program is for the families to be given a new start, to be able to develop a reference so that when they do go out into the normal market they have got the rental reference which is going to make it easy, which is pretty much all they're going to need. Hopefully they've gone through, finished their studying, got their stable income, got themselves mentally in the right headspace so that they can provide the opportunity for that home to another family and then they can move on into the normal rental market. So that's really what we want to see.
Speaker 1:So I'm bringing that up here because I think that there is a lot of people that might, you know, think as well if there's investors listening to this that you know you're offering a cheap rent for, like you know, five years to the same family, and that's not really my intention. However, when a tenancy does renew after 12 months, we do definitely look at the tenant situation. If they haven't finished their study, if they're not in the place where we want them to be to be able to go out in confidence, we're not going to put them in that position at all, but we definitely do want to monitor it. So we're helping as many people as possible. So we haven't really got to that stage yet, have we, where we've had to put one of the families back into the open market.
Speaker 3:Not really, though we do have some amazing case studies. So yeah, three years down the track of this program, we have got some beautiful testimonials from the investor's perspective and that's been really encouraging. And we know that they would give a glowing reference if the time came that they wanted to, you know, to take in a new tenant. But to be honest, some of the landlords that we've been speaking with recently you know they're just really pleased with how it's going for now and they're happy to give it a bit more time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously for that same tenant. I've got a couple of investors that have said to me they've bought just their first portfolio but they're planning on building on that and quite a few of them have said ash, I can't do it for this property because we've just purchased it and we're just starting out, but that is definitely in their portfolio plan to buy property that is suitable for them to put into the program. So, as an investor, having a portfolio or say five properties, with one of them being what we call a philanthropic property, is a great portfolio plan as well. You know, make your money off the other four properties and let's have one where you're still making money, but balance it, balance it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, correct. And we have a lot of people where they'll reach out to us, private homeowners, where they'll have a property where they're not too sure what they're going to do with it. They don't know if they're going to sell it, if they're going to gift it to family. It's kind of like just sitting there, stagnant, and they want to put it to good use. If you want to say yeah, yes, we have a lot of that which is good, really good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've had some, Some that are just not ready to sell. We've had a couple recently where it's been people who've inherited a place and they've said, oh look, I've already got a home. I'm feeling kind of, you know, a little bit guilty, even you know a bit of a privilege overwhelm, and they've just said, look, maybe I could do this. And look, you know, it's still in the family, it's still, you know, gaining in value. But in the meantime I can feel really good about what I've done with this inheritance in my lifetime. Not waiting until I pass away. I'm actually making a difference and doing some good right here, right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and actually that's just a really great point. It's also those investors that are wanting the capital growth more than the cash flow. They don't need the cash flow growth, but the capital is why they've got the property. I don't know whether you guys follow me on TikTok or not. I do Not on TikTok. It's a good thing, it's a good thing. So I'm going to throw a really really curly question out to you.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, I know Not giving us the questions and I throw in a curly one.
Speaker 3:This one's yours.
Speaker 1:So, on TikTok, I'm just trying to think how I'm going to word this best. On TikTok, I talk about philanthropic investing and I have been crucified crucified by people who hate investors and here I am trying to promote that there are some really great investors out there and I get told that all investors are a piece of shit and just because they're philanthropic doesn't mean that you know, like it just makes them feel better about making money type thing, like really still negative to it, and it's very disappointing and I've actually had I don't know if you've read the comments I've actually had one person on there say I think that a run a house should sit Ashley down and talk to her about, you know, oh, gosh, I think we can stop you from you know, having people accumulating property portfolios.
Speaker 1:I don't think.
Speaker 3:I've got that much influence.
Speaker 1:So a Rana House and I'm looking at the camera as I say this so I've got a Rana House sitting me down talking about it, about the philanthropic investing and why people see it, or choose to see investors, in such a negative light. It really, really drives me up the wall because it's putting a real negative spin on people that are doing such good stuff. And, like you said, there's different, there's reasons why people have got properties Maybe they've inherited it, maybe their parents, their owners, have gone into a nursing home lots of different reasons. And then people here doing good buyer, yet investors are still getting slammed for making money. It's very, very hard to hear. I've actually backed off a little bit on that philanthropic because they think it's a bullshit term, but I don't know what other term to use for it. I mean, that's the best word, isn't it.
Speaker 3:I mean, in an ideal world there'd all be, you know, one home per person and everyone would have everything equal, and we could destroy capitalism, and it'd be fantastic, that's a tonne of work.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure you can do it all by yourself, Ash. No, no, no, I'll just block and ignore. Block and ignore, Can you? We'll finish off by talking about what do you guys need from property managers right now? Do you need homes? Do you need money? Do you need support? What do you need? That all?
Speaker 3:sounds great.
Speaker 2:All of the above.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, let's come back to just saying you know, let's bring a little bit of human connection back into the conversation. Let's stop chasing you know, meaningless figures and think about how we can go and work with purpose every day. And if you're in that privileged position to invest, invest with purpose, you know, I guess, just don't turn a blind eye to what is right there in your street in your neighbourhood, everywhere at your local park, at your local school, be tuned in, realise just how prevalent it is and realise that there is something that you can do.
Speaker 2:And just have the conversation, you know. Have the conversation with the landlords, you know, because if they don't know that there is this opportunity to help families, you don't know if they're actually going to do that. Yeah, yeah, definitely, and even just so, any of our impact agents that are with us at the moment, if they're listening, just spreading the word and let other property managers know you've had a good experience, you know, and just spread the good vibes out there and let's all come together because that's been really good and you've been so helpful in this aspect. I mean, we had someone come on board and they really wanted to help a family and I was like, where have you heard about us? It was through Ashley.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that right yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean they've helped house two families and beautiful families and oh my god, they're doing so good at the moment and I was like that's just so good. I mean we essentially didn't have to do anything, it just came to us just because you had a positive conversation with her. So it holds so much weight. It really does yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's so good, I think. Yeah, the biggest takeaway for people listening is give the opportunity to your landlords. So new business coming up, have a chat to them. Here's your market rate. Here's also a second option. If you would like to go down the philanthropic road, then you've got the second option, which could even be which I don't do, but it could be an option.
Speaker 1:Just sort of thinking of ideas is that when a property comes up that you think is suitable for Arana and it's coming up for release, then saying to the owners listen, would you like to release it to the open market?
Speaker 1:Or we have got a program with our office which is for philanthropic investing. If it's something that might suit you, maybe it could be that as an owner, currently, let's say hypothetically, the owner's been getting 450 per week, but now that tenant's moving out and now the rent's $700 per week. But the owner might be like you know what? Actually I'm quite happy on that $450 a week I've been getting. So you know, putting it through to one of the families would be a good idea. And, like you said, having property managers having those conversations with each other and advertising that you're an impact agent, marketing about it, talking about it so that more people go hey, what's an impact agent? What does that do? It's literally just around those conversations. So that and not only giving the landlords and the investors the opportunity, but giving your property managers, giving your team the opportunity it's really let's put work aside from a personal level it's giving everyone an opportunity to live with purpose and to work with purpose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, yeah, for sure. I mean that would be really helpful. Definitely, because we do, really would love to get more people on board. Do?
Speaker 1:you have a goal or not, really.
Speaker 2:You know what? I think I've just had my head down and just so busy that I haven't even thought about that. No, but I do have to say I really do love what we do for work. I really do love it. I mean, I never get that. You know, sometimes you go into work and you're like, oh, like I might get if I feel tired or something. I'd be like, oh, but my work batteries if that's what you want to call them are charged like massively.
Speaker 2:Once someone get housed, or when they've been housed and I go to visit them, the change that I see in the women is just, I just can't describe it. They look different, they look totally different. They're confident, they're proud, they're just really happy and they're able to provide something for their children that they weren't before A safe place to live. It's what rightfully theirs. But when they actually achieve that and then they're able to make connections in the community, the kids can go to school and have friends over and they can, if you want to say, a normal life, but it's just, it's so good to see. I love that. Or when they you know you have to remain professional but you do get the look on your toe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do, and you're like it's just so beautiful to be able to give that to a mum, you know, and it's not that hard to do it, it's actually not.
Speaker 3:And I think that's why you say like it's not so much about setting a goal for the numbers of women and children housed, because we're always going to be fighting a tide, the demand will always be beyond our capacity.
Speaker 1:Is it increasing the number of families, is it? Oh, that's a shame, yeah very much so.
Speaker 3:However, I would say, in terms of goals, the goal is the number of impact agents. Yeah, because if I mean if we could get six more, you know, ahead of International Women's Day on the 8th of March, I think we would be absolutely thrilled. That would be an achievable goal, it's within reach. But six impact agents who say look, I'm either going to commit to a year of rent, top up $2,600. It's not much, right, tax deductible or, hey, I'm actually going to become one of the agencies that puts forward my rentals for one or two families. Even that would be great. So if we get maybe half a dozen of those in the next month or two, I think we would be on track for a really great year and we could feel really proud of that altogether.
Speaker 2:The donation is huge as well because where, like I said, the rental it's just not come down, it's still really expensive and going in on a single income to that, especially if you've been displaced or if you've been in refuge, trying to get back into the workforce from refuge is really difficult because I mean, who wants to sit in an interview and not be able to give an address?
Speaker 2:And you know it's just, there's so many layers to it. So then it's a massive barrier for people exiting refuge because like, well, I can't get a private rental because I can't afford it. But if we're able to say, yeah, we can top up the rent until they get back on their feet, they can do our empowered for employment program, metal things like that, go back to study, then they can sustain it on their own down the track. But if we are able to give them that financial contribution, then we've created that opportunity. So I mean the more that we can do that the better, because then where we have those people who have a portfolio, where they're like I don't have rentals that would be in your client's budget, well, maybe you do if we were able to top up the rent.
Speaker 1:One thing that I've definitely learned is that I didn't realise what impact a relatively small amount of money has for people. And in a different program that I help with there's $1,000 grants and you know $1,000 might be a grant for over. You know it might just be helping again. Just top up someone's rent if they've had a rent increase. And you think in my mind when I first started doing it, $1,000, I mean, that's not going to be a game changer. But when you hear these case studies and you spread out $1,000 over 10 weeks or whatever, it made a massive, massive difference. And so even $50 a week like I guess to a lot of us if I'm being going to be completely sort of ignorant that you'd think, oh, $50 a week, I can. You know, just not get Uber Eats one night or something stupid you can spend it in 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:you know Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But to realise that the amount $50 per week to a family that needs it is like so massive.
Speaker 3:It just means they might be the one that gets that much sought after lease.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Absolutely that one rental that is the only one that is that much sought after lease. You know what I mean. That one rental that is the only one that is available. It's theirs, it's really brilliant. And you know a thousand, like you mentioned earlier, that's just the bond. You know, Meanwhile, we're supporting someone to get access to funds that are rightfully theirs. They're going through a settlement, they're going to be able to pay that rent, no problem. They just didn't have access to that bond. So just getting them what they needed in that short term to get over the hurdle, it can really make a big difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so okay. So six impact agents is what we're looking for, and if I really just break this down for business owners and property managers, what $2,600 looks like for a business owner is one management fee for the year. It's like you are donating out of your whole portfolio of you know whether it's 50, 100, 500 properties, you're donating one management fee income to the program. That's it, and when we put it into the real basic terms like that, it's not a lot. So if, as a business owner, you can commit to that, to one or maybe I mean, how amazing would it be that for every one in a hundred properties you donate, you know, as an impact agent, like, what a great business plan to have to do that.
Speaker 1:Or to have your team and say to your team okay, for every hundred properties we get, we're have to do that. Or to have your team and say to your team, okay, for every 100 properties we get, we're going to do, you know, one impact agent donation, a really great KPI for your team to work towards Women, supporting women, yeah, and just a good business plan that. You know that's our plan for the business. We're going to do one donation for every 100 properties and you then advertise that in your business and you market that's what you do. You market it to your team, you market it to the public to say that's what we do. And I, you know again just sort of just thinking of those ideas outside the box, of how you can make it work in your business.
Speaker 3:And so let's I think that shared goal actually among colleagues, you know, really mobilise them, connect them to one another, normalise conversations around FDV in the workplace too, which is also a nice, important secondary effect, I think that would be, you know, a really great business plan. I agree, yeah, and I just thought of another idea as well.
Speaker 1:So MyConnect is a utility company that we use and a lot of businesses use. They offer a really good commission structure and there are some businesses out there who don't want to take the commission from the tenant utilities. And so, as a business plan or as a shared goal, the other option is you could actually use your MyConnect commission and use that to donate as well. So as a team, you decide that we're going to use that commission as our donation each year as well. So again, it's just another idea of what you can do using your business that you're already running at the moment and then you're in great company with a whole bunch of other amazing impact agents.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So this recording will be released, obviously, and you might be listening to it at different times, but it has been recorded at the start of 2025. And so one thing that I try to do is doing a charity event each year as well, and so we've got the charity event which we have been, the last couple of years, been doing it around the International Women's Day, which we're doing again this year, where we have silent auctions and have a beautiful breakfast with a speaker, and all the profits from that will go through to Arana as well. So, again, another way to support Arana is just to come to my event.
Speaker 1:A selfless good food. It is good food, yeah, so at this one. So we're having it at bib and tucker. It's three courses and, obviously, like, I'm trying to keep the costs down because, like, all the profits go to you guys, so the the better I can get, the uh, the cost, the more that you guys I can pass on to you. So they gave us a three-course option and I was like, oh, three courses, we don't need three-course breakfast, I mean, but that's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot for people that don't even eat breakfast, you know so. But she assured me that it was a very sort of small sort of first and third course and then your breakfast in between. So it should be absolutely beautiful. And we've got Heidi Anderson. Do you guys know Heidi?
Speaker 3:She's so cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you seen her? Do you follow her?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think you know no, but the name is so familiar.
Speaker 1:I don't know why. Yeah, she's talking a lot about courage and she does a lot in that space, so relevant, but a little bit left of sort of what we're doing and she'll be really great to listen to. And I've organised I signed a book for every single person coming as well, so they'll have them, which is really cool.
Speaker 3:And you've got the beautiful view of Leighton Beach. Yes, and Bibbentucker is delicious. Yes, I haven't been there for years. It's like my favourite special occasion.
Speaker 1:Placeon Beach yes, and Bibintaka is delicious, yes, I haven't been there for years. It's like my favourite special occasion place, nice, nice, so I'm looking forward to that. So I guess that's sort of yeah, one thing that I personally do. But again, you know, in your business maybe you have an internal charity event, maybe you do a charity event for your investors or your tenants and you can also raise funds Like I'm just trying to drop all these like ideas that people can do inside their businesses to help and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Lots of ideas and we love visiting our impact agents. We'll come out, we'll chat with the team, we'll explain a lot more about Orana House and the work we're doing right here and, you know, sometimes that can be quite inspiring and motivating for the team too, just to know that, that contribution, what it is doing in real terms, so close to home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're always up for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know we're a very small, locally based charity. You know our refuge is in the city of Bayswater. We've got transitional properties around Perth, but you know the need here is enormous and so there's a lot of good people can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect. Well, it was lovely having you both in today. Apologies that I didn't do any of those questions. I don't think you did one. I love to go on script. Well, always good to chat it is. You know it's my style. You know I only give you the questions for your own peace of mind before you come in, but I should put a disclaimer on there. You know they may not be asked, but you guys did very, very well and um great discussion again for both property managers, business owners, investors as well, and I hope that definitely shed some more insight into how you can, yeah, work and live with purpose very easily, doing exactly what you're already doing.