Every Agent Has A Story: Jodie Stainton

Our next story comes from Jodie Stainton, Business Performance Executive at Apmasphere, who shares the two key lessons she learned, after an inaccurate listing, an incorrect rental, and committing a break-and-enter during an open house.

• Picking up on mistakes or discrepancies early can, at the very least, reduce the weight of any repercussions.
• If you’re missing the keys for the house inspection upon arrival, Uber can help you in a pinch.

Transcript

Hi, my name’s Jodie Stainton. I’m from Apmasphere, and I’ve been in property management for about 15 years.

Over my 15-year career, I’ve got about three stories that come to mind: things that I need to absolve my sins for and hope that I never have to think about these things again, because they still give me nightmares.

The first is my very first property that I ever rented, it was actually a townhouse. There was 30 other townhouses, and I rented it advertising it that it actually had a dishwasher in it, and it turns out it didn’t. My poor director had to pay about $5 per week for 26 weeks for my mistake. It was my very first property, and I still think about that.

The second one was, I was the state manager for Harcourts Property Management, and we had a situation where one of our agencies actually rented the wrong property to a tenant, and it got so far in that the tenant actually moved in.

So if you can imagine that the owner comes to pick up the keys, they’re really excited about moving into their brand-new property, they get there, they open the door, and there’s a massive Hungarian man there that didn’t really speak much English going, “What are you doing?” And she’s going, “What are you doing being in my property?” There’s another story there.

My third one, which I still cringe every time I think about it, is the time that I actually committed a break and enter. It was one of those properties, and I remember this property because it was just one of those ones that had the property-management curse, where everything went wrong with it. We had tenant, they had a car motor and they decided to actually work on the car motor in the middle of the living room. You can imagine the mess of it when these tenants vacated.

Anyway, so I wanted to get this property rented. I go out to the property, and I’m about five minutes early for the inspection. We’ve got about 10-15 people showing up. It’s a really high inspection time. I go to open up the door, and of course, the keys don’t open. The keys don’t work and the door doesn’t open. I think, “Oh my goodness, how am I going to get all these people through?” It was one of those post-war-style homes with the casement windows, and I actually grew up in one of those, so I sort of knew how to break into it. I hitch up my skirt, I jump on the wheelie bin, precariously open the casement window, and launch myself through the kitchen window, basically onto the floor, head-first.

Now, could you just imagine the people looking at me going, “Oh my God.” When I think about that, not only did I break and enter, but I did it in front of 10-15 people, which I don’t think is a good idea. I not only showed them how to break and enter into the property when tenants do move in, but then I actually showed them how easy it was to break into this home, so why would they rent it? I still, to this day, think about that story and think, “Oh, I can’t believe I did that.”

If you’re a new leasing consultant and this happens to you, these days you’ve got Uber. Go on the app and get someone to pick up the keys for you and bring them. It’s going to cost $10-15, which is a lot less expensive than re-advertising, getting to the property again, all those sorts of things. That would be my big tip.

Thanks very much, guys! Bye!