"Why bother! What a lazy 'service'!" - Well, we assumed stuff and this led to misunderstandings!
Our experience has not been so good, but in part this has been due to us taking certain things for granted. We made the mistake of assuming that using an agent to professionally manage the lease of our brand newly built rental property would include a few basic givens, eg
1. We thought we could scan and vet the rental applications received. We assumed we would be choosing from a priority 'best fit' short-list of applicants. But, unless overtly stated as a preference by the client, usual practice is for the agent to select the first applicant(s) they deem to be the best fit.
2. Conduct due diligence into information given by tenants in the lease document. We discovered many anomalies in the document after the tenants had moved in.
Again, our ignorance of normal practice got in the way here. Check-ups into some of the info contained in lease applications is not always possible due to privacy and other concerns;
3. Comply with the landlords' wishes about essential property information that should have been passed on to the prospective tenants;
Again, our mistake for stating these verbally and not putting these in writing;
4. Provide timely email responses to questions asked by the landlord and the tenants during the tenancy period;
5. Give timely notification to the landlord by phone/text/or email of appliance repairs needed while the warranty was still current;
6. Act as the landlord's representative rather than as management of the property by benign neglect.
7. A professional Property Management service going beyond doing the office paperwork, particularly providing timely feed-back to the clients as to aspects of the rental property that may cause delays in securing a tenancy. That is, it may have been better for all concerned if prior to letting the property, a longer viewing period and /or viewing by appointment had been raised and discussed.