Nice Place: A journey

It was almost 10 years ago that Keith Powell started building his business, Nice Place Property Management – he was managing his own character properties around Newtown when it became apparent the skills and business acumen he’d developed from his previous job could mean he could manage others’ properties on their behalf as well. He officially launched at Christmas time in 2010 and over the past 10 years the business has gone from strength to strength, so we thought we would share some highlights of our journey so far.

When Nice Place first started, we had an initial rent roll of 60 properties, 10 years later we are now approaching 450 properties.  It is through steady growth and acquiring a couple of other rent rolls that has brought us to where we are today. 450 properties may seem small compared to other property management companies, but it allows us to give each property the attention they deserve.

We believe what separates Nice Place from other property management companies is the carefully formed group of life-experienced employees who manage situations with our tenants with compassion and clarity (and firmness when required). Many of our staff are landlords themselves, so we treat every property as if we own it, making decisions and recommendations accordingly.

Many of the properties we manage come from referrals from our current landlords, which is how we’ve been building our business. It’s encouraging to know that our existing clients enjoy their service enough to refer their own friends, family and colleagues.

Not everything over the past decade has been rosy and we have ended up at the Tenancy Tribunal a few times, mostly winning each of them. These have often been a stressful time but also a time to learn not only for ourselves but for the wider property management industry. One notable case that gained attention around the country was when one of our tenants sublet the property on Airbnb. This was amongst the first of its kind to be heard by the Tenancy Tribunal and they ruled in our favour that sub-letting a rental property on the online accommodation marketplace Airbnb was a breach of the Residential Tenancies Act. We appealed several aspects of this to the District Court becoming a precedent setting case open the gates for more landlords to win.

We’ve also been getting all our property managers qualified with the NZ Residential Property Managers Level 4 qualification. This ensures that all our property managers operate at best practice and thoroughly adhere to the Residential Tenancies Act – the legislation that has been changing and evolving at pace over the time our business has operated.

On top of that, our business is rapidly adopting technology to support our operations. It allows us to grow further without increasing costs and also improves efficiencies for our suppliers, clients and tenants.

And finally, we are lucky to have built a reliable team around us of trades people and professional services, who have seen the company expand and just like us, provide a dedicated service that our landlords and tenants love.

Here’s to another great 10 years!

Keith and the team at Nice Place.