Nice to be Nominated!

Celebration of The Property Woman Award 2012 Nomination

The Letting People are delighted to announce that their Marketing Director, Caroline Kempster, has been nominated for the National Landlords Association Letting Agent Property Woman Award 2012.  This award is for an inspirational woman operating within a lettings agency.  

Since becoming a landlord herself, and setting up the business in 2002, Caroline has been at the forefront of creating a marketing-led business and a strong brand that has always recognised that a letting agency is definitely a ‘people’ business – and hence the name, 'The Letting People'. 

Caroline says: 
“I am very proud to have been nominated for this award by a long term landlord, and I hope that these awards will encourage more women into a very interesting, rewarding and professional career.  The Letting People has gone from strength to strength because of the support and encouragement of our long term staff and landlords, and of our freelance colleagues.

We started The Letting People as an alternative to the traditional estate agency as we wanted to provide a specialised, professional, and local service to our clients.  From the beginning I believed in building up long term relationships with our landlords over many years, rather than just being in the business of selling a property and then moving on to the next one.  

I am very concerned that in recent years lettings has become seen as just an add-on business to most estate agencies.  It seems that very few of these businesses are investing their time and effort to understand all the legalities of lettings, or to addressing the real concerns of their landlords and tenants.”

Caroline enjoys creating new marketing ideas for individual properties and for the business (including radio commercials, videos, and social media) and has also enjoyed creating a joint promotion with the local hospice where she works voluntarily.

Last year The Letting People became a franchise business, and Caroline now looks forward to  working with inspirational franchise partners throughout England.  In future years she is optimistic about helping them to breathe new and professional life into the private-rental sector.
 

The Letting People blog is here!

 The Letting People have now launched a blog through Tumblr to complement our twitter, facebook and linkedin feeds. Take a look down the bottom right hand side of our home page to find the links. Also, Anthony and Caroline both have twitter and linkedin accounts… see you there!

Cancer Research UK ball

A great night at the Motor Heritage museum with over £8000 raised for Cancer Research UK! The drinks reception was held in the motor museum public areas with a lovely meal and lively dancing after in the top floor function room. The Letting People were proud to sponsor and a big thanks to dazzlepeople for arranging.

The Perfect 10! The Letting People 2002-2012

What were you doing 10 years ago in 2002?   We were all 10 years younger and it seems incredible that we were just establishing The Letting People business and enjoying taking on our first properties to let. We were therefore very excited when one of our first landlords from 2002, Mr Pete Mason, recently won our monthly Myton Hospice Lottery Prize Draw.  Pete said “Having dealt with The Letting People for 10 years I have always found them to be reliable, honest, and a pleasure to work with – and that makes all the difference!”  So, thanks Pete, we hope we will be letting your properties for at least another 10 years!
If you are a landlord who would like to be entered into our free monthly Myton Hospice Lottery Prize Draw (with the chance to win up to £5000 in the quarterly jackpot) just contact us for more details.
 

Relocation Agents -The Letting People comment in the UK Landlord publication!.

The Letting People were delighted to have contributed to the article ‘Relocation Relocation’ featured in the UK Landlord publication issue May/June 2012 of the National Landlord Association in an article about relocation agents.

In answer to landlord’s frequently asked questions, we are delighted to provide landlords with more insight into our experience of relocation agents and the benefits to landlords of instructing The Letting People to let their property

 What are the advantages of using a relocation agent for landlords instructed by The Letting People are
o a ready supply of good quality tenants with many acting on behalf of national companies
o knowledge and expertise of their client requirements particularly with foreign nationals which facilitates a successful application and referencing process
o assisting a smooth handover process – the relocation agent will assist with moving the tenant into the property, connection of subscription services such as Sky and broadband and dealing  with the council tax and utilities

 How do relocation agents differ from The Letting People?
o The relocation agent's service is offered and paid for by the tenant, whilst the letting agent's service is on behalf of the landlord. Therefore it is only The Letting People, as your letting agent, that will be looking after your interests in the lettings process.

 What terms do The Letting People offer and what clauses are to be included and avoided?
o Were applicable we offer a managed service including handover which meets the requirements of most relocation agents The Letting People deal with.  The Letting People will endeavour to negotiate a clause in the agreement that where possible the relocation agent arranges end of tenancy property preparation for checkout including cleaning. In addition, a jointly assessed end of tenancy schedule of condition and dilapidations report. The Letting People will review any clauses proposed by relocation agents and in particular to avoid landlords paying any additional fees to the relocation agent.

The Letting People as your local, independent and specialist residential letting agent, will regularly ensure that relocation agents are aware of properties that may be suitable for their clients. Also, we are used to liaising with relocation agents on a regular basis with systems and procedures in place for ongoing liaison during the tenancy

The Letting People have assisted relocation agents with placing employees of local companies, and well known national and international companies.

If you have a property which may be suitable for a single professional or a family relocating to Warwickshire, why not contact Caroline now on caroline@thelettingpeople.co.uk
 

Landlords! The Letting People discount card is now available at Homebase

At our Leamington Spa branch. The next time you visit Homebase at Leamington or Warwick why not pick up The Letting People discount card. The Letting People discount card may be collected from the stand near the tills and if you are looking to let out your property, you could claim a £50 discount on our classic agency letting services!

Investors look to maximise returns

It has been over a year since The Letting People launched the No fee guaranteed rent scheme and what a year it has been with a positive response from local landlords after the scheme was announced in January 2011
Are you a buy-to-letter looking to ‘let and leave’ with a guaranteed rent, no void periods, and no letting agency fees? Or, a landlord with a property now needing a makeover to attract the best tenants and highest rental
Savvy landlords and many sensible investors are now looking to become the next generation of buy-to-letters.  With bank interest rates expected to remain at low levels of 1-2% and well-managed properties yielding 5-6% of the whole purchase price (and sometimes more) 2012 is looking like a happy new year for landlords.
Added to this, as potential first-time buyers move into the area and find they are unable to secure a mortgage to buy a property, the demand for rented property is increasing dramatically.  This increase in demand is occurring across most of the country and therefore, landlords have rarely found it so easy to raise rents. Locally, this is probably the first sustained increase in rents for over ten years!  Also, many of those buy-to-let landlords entering the market in the last decade will also be seeing happier times ahead as historical fixed-rate (many over 6%) mortgages come to the end of the term and they can reap the benefits from the sustained and unprecedented low Bank of England interest rate.
All good news for potential landlords, but how do I take advantage? The Letting People are now offering a new letting service with a guaranteed rent, no void periods (over an agreed fixed term) and no letting agency fees.  Where required we will also offer a property makeover schedule. 
This new service is an alternative to our more traditional agency letting schemes and will ideally suit those investors wishing to ‘let and leave’ their properties with no fuss and hassle (no tenant change over, deposit disputes or void periods for you to worry over during the period!) and an agreed guaranteed rent which you can budget for a period of up to 3 years. All this includes a free management service provided by The Letting People.
Interested? To find out more about this service, please contact us to make an appointment for us to assess your property for the scheme
 

Striking the right kind of deal

 We have recently had some interesting deals on new tenancies.  Many prospective tenants and some new landlords, are often surprised that we suggest a negotiation on the rental in order to secure a reasonable deal for both parties.  A few years ago it was the norm for tenants to pay the asking rental and both agents and landlords were surprised with the few tenants who dared to ask for a reduction!

Nowadays, with the growth in TV programmes showing property negotiations as the norm, many prospective tenants reckon it’s a worthwhile exercise to make an offer and see what the landlord is prepared to accept.  This is probably a good idea if they are able to move in quickly, or are prepared to take the property ‘as seen’ without any special requests for accommodating a pet, or the removal or supply of furnishings.

The only problem that then arises is when a landlord is not able to make a decision regarding the offer there and then, and comes back to us a day or two later to accept the offer or try to renegotiate.  Unfortunately, many prospective tenants, while waiting for a response, will then fear the worst, assume they have ‘lost’ the property, and therefore continue to view similar properties. These properties may be less expensive or the landlord might be able to accommodate their special request straight away and do a ‘deal’ there and then.

But fortunately, many of our professional landlords have already been through the heartache of unsuccessful negotiations and usually reckon that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.   In other words it is probably better to accept a reasonable offer from a good prospective tenant today, than to hold out for the higher asking rental which may take some time (sometimes several weeks) to materialize.  Additionally, tenants who believe that they have secured a good rental ‘deal’ often end up staying for a longer tenancy than those who feel like they have paid more rental than they wanted to.

Therefore, looking at the figures in detail, if you were advertising your property to rent at say £600 per calendar month and were offered £550pcm from a tenant wanting to move in next week for 12 months, we would highly recommend that this offer should be accepted straight away.  In effect your rental income for that year would then be £6,600 per annum.  If you had to wait a further month for an offer of £575pcm, your income for the next 11 months would then be £6,325 less any additional council tax or utility costs that may be payable during the waiting or ‘void’ period. 

Of course, the negotiations can go the other way and many landlords may turn down a low offer if they know that there are other good prospective viewings booked on the same property.  Good prospects might include tenants who can move in quickly or those who are currently renting properties with us who have a good credit and employment history.

I hope that some of the above tips will be useful for both new or seasoned landlords who want to negotiate quickly and speed up the next letting.  So good luck with deciding whether it’s a ‘deal’ or ‘no deal’!
 

In the Dragon’s Den with Doug Richard!

Formerly a 'dragon' on the BBC's Dragons' Den, Doug Richard, the leading entreprenear is soon to give The Letting People top quality business advice. Caroline Kempster, Marketing Director, is the lucky winner of a session with Doug following a web business course she attended (the Web Fuelled Business bootcamp.)  Caroline says "I can't wait to talk to Doug about The Letting People's use of the internet for our business.  I learnt lots about web-based tools on the business bootcamp, and it's a great opportunity to have one-to-one advice from a real expert – especially as I won't have to go into the Dragons' Den!"