The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties

EP. 1425 Salty Tenant Reviews: Revenge or Real Talk?

• Mark Novak, Cleo Whithear • Season 30 • Episode 1425

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Behind every one-star review lies a story—and in property management, that story is rarely as straightforward as it seems. In this eye-opening conversation with property management veteran Cleo Whithear, we peel back the layers on the complex relationship between tenant reviews, agency responses, and what really happens behind the scenes.

For property managers, online reviews are a double-edged sword. While sales agents bask in the glow of positive feedback for record-breaking sales, property managers often face the wrath of tenants unhappy with bond disputes, property access, or tenancy terminations. As Cleo poignantly shares, "I take every review personally. You take it home with you to your kids, to your husband." This raw honesty reveals how deeply committed most property professionals are to doing right by both landlords and tenants, despite operating in an environment where delivering difficult news is unavoidable.

What makes these reviews particularly fascinating is the timing and context. Why would someone leave a scathing review about a property they lived in for 16 years? We explore how below-market rents often incentivize tenants to stay despite complaints, and how reviews frequently appear only after the tenant has moved on—sometimes even after receiving positive references from the very agency they're criticizing. The most valuable insight for consumers? Read the whole review, including the agent's response with documented evidence. Those photos of trashed properties or detailed communication timelines tell a completely different story than the one-sided tenant account.

Looking for a property manager you can trust? Don't just skim the star ratings—dive deeper into how agencies respond to criticism, the evidence they provide, and whether they take a professional approach even when faced with unfair feedback. The complete picture might surprise you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, guys, looking at agencies reviews on Google. So when you're looking at considering a real estate agent, you look at the reviews. It's a great platform, how people use it. We're going to talk about it today. Stay tuned, I'm the ringleader, so make it up. Claire Whitt here. Expert property manager of many, many, many, many, many years. Great to have you on today. How are you?

Speaker 2:

Good morning, I'm good, I'm good, thank you. I feel these winter months, though, are starting to, you know, have an effect on the old body here I think I'm getting a cold winter is coming winter is coming, it sure is.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry, not my warm jumper on today, but to handle this topic yeah, and good luck to everyone who's had these floods um north of new south wales. Our thoughts with you guys. I hear you in tari.

Speaker 2:

It's a one in 500 year event wow, it's nuts, it's crazy and it's a lot of elderly people I can see getting lifted up out of these waters in choppers and then it's terrible. It's really hard on all the community involved and, yeah, we just hope everyone's safe for sure.

Speaker 1:

Stay safe. Stay safe Now, cleo. So we are a beautiful target. We are the largest rental agents, one of the largest rental agents in Sydney, managing over 2 000 properties, which includes probably four to six thousand tenants. Um, there, we have review platforms like facebook. We have review platforms like google. Um, we have lots of lovely reviews. Our hearts get broken when we don't get a good review and, um, we sort sort of it's, we talk about it amongst ourselves because everyone works in the in the business, so hard, genuinely so hard, and it sort of hits rock bottom when you get a bit of a tough review, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:

Look, it definitely does, especially in property management. I think this wave of social media has changed our industry immensely, for good and bad. When it comes to sales and reviews on, you know, google platforms and things like that, it's usually to compliment the agent and how amazing they've been in selling their home and getting a record price. In property management, mostly 90 percent of reviews are tenants complaining of the outcome of their tenancy. So, as a property manager for 16 years, I have had to take tenants bonds, I've had to terminate tenants, I've had to do the end cap. Short of seeing people in the street and having a verbal stash, which never happens, you do get the social media, um, you know, backlash and you know it's coming a lot of the time. Um, we often, you know, joke around, you know, in the office with our fellow colleagues oh well, just wait for my review.

Speaker 2:

Now, like I've, you know, I've had to do something that is not favorable, um, as part of our job. It's part of our job. We don't. We don't own all these properties ourselves. It's not in our best interest in any way. To you know, displace tenants or take money or do things. That's what we're paid to do sometimes, to make these tough and hard decisions. So, as a thank you, we do get these reviews a lot of the time you know that we feel are unjust and there's no platform for PMs to write about what really happens in a tenancy. There's no google for PMs, to you know, complain about all the things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. So you know, we understand it and it's fine.

Speaker 2:

You have to be thick-skinned in this industry. You really have to not take it personal. But even you know, during this over 15 years, I still take it personally. I take every review personally. Um, you take it home with you to your kids, to your husband. You just go. I can't believe this, like you know, and my husband used to. Now he's 15 years in. He's like I don't want to hear it.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, and I think it's look. If you look at how it cleaned up the taxi industry or the Uber industry like it's, these reviews are fantastic because they've really. You know, you get a water in a taxi sometimes. Now you know these guys are trying real hard. Do you know what I mean? To?

Speaker 2:

you know, yeah, uber, yeah hard, do you know?

Speaker 1:

what I mean. Yeah, uber, it's produced a better result. And I think with real estate agents there's a certain amount of bad news. You have to deliver, sometimes on behalf of a landlord, and I do see the reviews come through. Look, they're not a lot, but I think when you've got 60 or 70 sets of tenants moving out and 60 sets of tenants moving in, you know it's. You know, generally it's a it's a harder thing to you know to keep on top of.

Speaker 1:

But what I find is is the thing that I love is whenever I see this come through and will probably be once a quarter you know where there's something that comes through and it's like, oh, but what I love is seeing the response come back from a property manager in our agency with the facts. And so there goes something like this, like I can't believe this happened or that happened and I was kicked out of my property and I was told this and my bond was taken. And then you see the property manager's response with here's the photo of the damage oh, here's the oven. Here's the disgusting oven. Here's the tenant burnt out the unit, the owner, the landlord, which was the church. Sometimes we have churches where we act for churches and stuff like that, whoever the landlord has said this and the facts come through and if you read the beginning and you read the end, I think, as a consumer looking at a review, you'll go.

Speaker 2:

I see the balance story, but you're still left with one star exactly, exactly and you know everything we do is recorded in the office. We use our database software. Every email, every notice, everything is recorded um every photo. We keep on file tenancy ledgers. They're forever Like. We can't fabricate our claims in any way. That's why when we go to NCAT we have to have real heavy documents to support what we're saying.

Speaker 2:

We're not just making these comments willy-nilly or just, you know, making decisions for no reason. But yeah, it is, it's part of our industry. It's tough. Like you said, there's not a lot of reviews um that come through in the day-to-day um, and you know, in an ideal world we'd love everyone to be happy, rainbows and flowers, but it doesn't always happen that way.

Speaker 2:

Um, you know, the bond money is the contentious point and sometimes it's access for property where a tenant might not know an agent's coming through, even though we send letters and SMSs and we have safeguards. These things can put a tenant off and they sometimes, you know, think that it's on purpose or that there's some agency conspiracy involved purpose or that there's some agency conspiracy involved, and there really isn't. You know we're there to collect the rent for the owner, give tenants, you know, nice properties to rent. We try and help with maintenance. We, you know, we're placing people in homes and and we are a caring bunch, you know. So, at the end of the day, um, maybe keep that in mind when you're reading some of these reviews.

Speaker 2:

I don't know If it's something that you like to do. I personally don't. I don't review at a restaurant. I don't review. I don't like a meal, I just go. I'm not coming back to eat this meal. I'm just not one of those people Like, I just don't and I don't look at reviews when I go to book something. I'm just not that person. I just might ask a friend have you stayed here or have you dealt with this person or that person? That's fine for me, but I'm not going to go down that. Yeah, I don't spend that much time online On the rabbit hole. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1:

So I guess advice to tenants out there and I find it interesting because normally the review doesn't come in when the event happens, the bad review After they've moved into being accepted, when you've given them a reference, you know, to go into the new place, then comes the review later. It's like, oh seriously.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes you look at some of these. If a property was so bad or a scenario was so bad, why would you stay there for 16 years?

Speaker 2:

yeah a long, long, long time. There's break lease clauses, there's ways to get out of things. I've had many tenants that have found a property not suitable or the circumstance not suitable and it's like say love me, let's do an amicable split. Here's your money back, your bond back, whatever back. Everybody just moves on. You wouldn't stay somewhere such a long, long, long time if it was that bad. You know I think rents are going to. You know they've played a big part in why you might stay, because these rents in this particular one that we might be talking about is the rent was very low not even comparable for two bedded or one bedder.

Speaker 2:

So I you know you could save money in this property for many, many years to buy and purchase, and some landlords are really happy with that. They nurture that. They say you know what? I have a few properties or I inherited this property. I want to be mother teresa and keep the rent low for five years for this person and it happens a lot we do.

Speaker 2:

I manage a lot of properties where the owners always say no, I don't want to increase the tenants. Being really good to me, I don't want her or him to struggle. Fair enough, you know, and that's why you might stay in a property where the garage door is a bit creaky or the paint's a bit yellow or this or that, because if you were to move, you're gonna be paying four, five hundred dollars a week more, um, for the amenities that you currently have or if you want more amenities. So I guess that's another thing I feel as well. These new legislative laws are going to create more havoc. I don't want to be the um grinch or doom and gloom person, but I feel like um if it's harder for a landlord to want to end a tenancy. Now the tenants have even more control and even more power in that respect.

Speaker 1:

So, um yeah, watch this space yeah, it's going to be interesting and I think the best advice I can give out of real estate agencies reviews is if you're looking, if you're looking at a real estate agency review, just have a look at the quality of the agent. Read the whole review, read it from beginning to end, um, because I think you'll you'll actually, on balance, then make a balanced decision, rather than the opening comment, because you see, one star opening comment, oh shit.

Speaker 1:

But when you look at stuff like ours you'll see you know one star opening comment and then you'll read the rest of it and you actually see what happened. We'll actually put photos in there of the property in the reality in there of the property, saying okay, thank you for your review. But you know, please consider X, y, z. We're very factual and everything's documented on those reviews. So read them all. Look. Would I change? Not having the platform?

Speaker 2:

No, I think the review platforms are you would PM, definitely would.

Speaker 1:

Look, I think the whole google review things was a necessary thing for people to have their say. Um, social media is another way that people will get on there and have a hack, um, but again, you know, we see the property, we, you know. When you get the rest of the story, the balance story, it sort of starts to make sense. And I think you know the weight of um of of reviews, you know always makes up. But, um, a good agent is not asking for praising for their reviews to be documented, they're just getting on and doing a great job. But I think a good agent these days is now actually saying you know, I know, but you know, can you also give me a review, mr tenant, mr landlord? Because we sort of we don't hunt them. Um, I remember buying a car and the way they hunted the review from me was just like wow, and they, and it was even.

Speaker 1:

I was even um what do you call it? Not bred, um, I was combed or I was. I was primed prior to the review to say I knew, you know, five star here and a five star there, and then, when I did something wrong with the review, they asked me to go back and fix it. And I was like, wow. So there's a lot of efforts, a lot of industries put a lot of effort into into their reviews, and real estate agents are not one of those um, but I think it's getting. It's going to have to be that way now in the future because that's, you know, the review system's not going away well, look at influencers.

Speaker 2:

That's their whole job, isn't it? They're reviewing products and it's a living, breathing job, but I think, for us as well, just knowing that we're accountable. We've been in our industry, in our work, for over 10, 15, 20 years, you know so it's not like we've been in the, you know, in the industry, in our work, for over 10, 15, 20 years, you know so it's not like we've been in the industry a couple of years. So yeah, interesting Salty tenant reviews revenge or real talk.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for coming on today. Claire, appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, have a great day. Thanks Sage, take care Bye.