Creative Estates’ Property Management team has not stopped taking care of properties all over Israel during the first or second corona virus lock-down. Here are some of the real estate issues we have been dealing with this past summer.
“For us, it’s business as usual. Tenants and property owners know that they can call on us and we will be there for them”, explains CEO Shaun Isaacson. “We are still busy checking properties, finding new tenants, organizing contracts and carrying out repairs. The hardest aspect of our work at this time is taking potential tenants to view properties. People understandably don’t want to meet inside apartments or spend too long in someone else’s living space. We are careful to follow government guidelines, and we have managed to maintain our record of 100% rentals even during lockdown.”
Helping Tenants
Erev Rosh Hashanah this year was a Friday, and it also marked the start of Israel’s second official lock-down period. Shaun took a call from tenants in an apartment in Netanya whose air conditioning system was not working. The temperature that day was 31°C (87°F) and the heatwave was set to continue for the two days of the festival. While all the stores were closing down and the police were preparing to close the roads to traffic on Friday morning, we managed to send one of our air-con engineers to the apartment. Fortunately he was able to fix the problem on the spot, and our tenants were able to enjoy a cool and happy start to the New Year.
Careful tenants can often save their landlords significant amounts of money just by noticing problems. In one apartment that we manage in Ra’anana, the residents spotted that the opposite side of the wall of their bathroom was damp. They called us quickly, and we brought in a water detection specialist to look into the problem. It turned out that there was a leak in a bathroom pipe within the wall. Had it gone unnoticed, it could have caused significant damage not only to that apartment but also potentially to all the apartments below. Creative Estates ensures that all apartments have good insurance policies to cover such events, and we arranged for the insurance company to send their assessor. He approved the work of opening the wall to fix the leak, closing it up again and painting the wall. Within one week, with minimal inconvenience for the tenants and minimal expense for the owner, the problem was resolved.
Helping Overseas Owners
Many of our overseas home owners have been unable to visit Israel during 2020. One such client has a holiday home in Herzliya that has been sitting empty all year, and we check it regularly. They asked us to renegotiate their contracts with their pool cleaning and gardening companies for the next few months. We were able to reduce their maintenance expenses by approximately 50%. We are currently offering a free property check service to any overseas property owner.
This summer, another overseas client inherited an apartment in Tel Aviv that had not been lived in for four years. There was an inch of dust on the floors! He asked us to fix it up at minimal cost, so that it could be rented out in a livable state. We sent our team to clean it thoroughly and to upgrade the old bathrooms to modern standards. Within 2 months of receiving his instructions, we had found tenants for the apartment. Their rental payments were covering the upgrade costs, as well as giving the owners an income!
Creative Estates has joined the nationwide Israel Property Network group, expert estate agents helping people around the world to buy and sell real estate in Israel. They also rent, lease and manage short term rentals for some of our properties. So, if you have a property in Israel, or if you are thinking of investing in one, contact us today for a free consultation about managing it as a holiday home or and renting it out for you.