One of the most common questions we are asked by clients is how long should a condition report take me? Whilst this is simply a great question, the answer isn’t simple and will vary from client to client. Here are five factors we would suggest you review in your approach.
- How much are you being paid for the condition report?
If you don’t have a separate fee for the condition report and are relying on the letting fee at the start of the lease, then consider the fee you are being paid. The letting fee is essentially then covering the advertising, open homes, lease negotiation, application checking, lease preparation, condition report, property preparation, bond lodgment, all client communication, and documentation saving. From here you can see the dollars attached to the condition report vs your time might not be aligned and you can consider how much time should be allocated.
- Are you already using appropriate technology to complete the report efficiently?
Your technology should enable your team to be able to create a report which looks good, automatically syncs photos, ‘talks’ to your trust software to update records, and allow you to do this whilst at the property to save time.
- How much detail do you need to go into to protect yourself and your client from risk?
Make sure we are focusing on covering off the correct elements first. A report with a thousand photos (yes, we see these being made) can appear good, although without the comments, and structure of the report first it won’t protect your client and in turn you.
- What is your client’s current expectation of what will be prepared?
When reviewing the previous condition reports your client has been receiving, are you constantly lifting the bar on the time it takes to make a condition report? If so, there isn’t anything wrong with increasing our standards as time goes on. Just consider it is much harder to reduce those standards later so an expectation will be to still meet to exceed in the future.
- Are you getting full benefit from your condition report?
With all of this being considered, if you are choosing to spend more time on your condition report to provide a high-quality service, I am pleased. I would want to ask are you getting the full benefit of this by emphasising to your tenant and landlord the additional effort which you have put into the report?
