danielrv – Page 4

August 23, 2013

How to show a property in 5 simple steps

One question a letting agent or landlord may ask themselves is how to show property successfully. In an ideal world, the letting agent would simply open the door to a rental property and the features of the property would speak for themselves, thus leading to a successful letting.

However in reality, the letting market is flooded with properties, all with perceived positives and negatives. In short, the letting agent must put the ground work in to set the property on view apart from the competition!

I have listed below five key rules on how to show a property. These will ensure the tenant gets the best impression of the property, and also of the professional service the letting agent provides. Please read the rules below and put them into practice because as the great Roy Keane says, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”

1. Be punctual for the viewing – arrive early!

When you are showing your rental property it is important that you arrive early for the viewing to make sure the place is presentable and to allow you to find your bearings in the property. There is nothing worse than arriving at the same time as the prospective tenant or worse, arriving late for an appointment.

If you are conducting viewings in the colder months, try to arrive a little early to put the heating and lights on so they are coming into a cosy well-lit property. Meet and greet your prospective tenants in a calm friendly manner, as this will put the tenants at ease when viewing. You may be under pressure for time, but remain calm! Remember first impressions last!

2. Clean and tidy property is essential!

Make sure the property is clean and tidy as first impressions of the property will most likely sway your tenant’s decision. Your prospective tenant must be able to visualise living in the property and with clutter lying around, it won’t feel like a blank canvas for the tenant to make their mark.

A good cleaning company can provide a deep clean of the property which is something your tenants will expect before moving in so get this sorted before you conduct your viewings to maximise the letting potential.

3. Know your property inside out!

It is so important to know the property inside out. Would you buy a car off a garage if the salesperson couldn’t tell you what size engine the car had, or what fuel it uses? All too often agents don’t familiarise themselves with the property leading to poor communication of the features and benefits.

Your tenants will have lots of different questions and if you are well prepared, you will be able to answer them there and then. This could be the difference between the tenant renting your property or the next one on their list.

Some questions tenants will ask:

Is the cooker electric or gas operated?
What type of TV connection is available and can I bring my own satellite dish?
How much is the average electricity and gas bill?
What is the energy rating for the property?
How much for water charges, waste collection and council taxes?
Is the shower an electric shower and what is the pressure like?

4. Know the area – local amenities

Some letting agents or landlords may not live in the locality or be too familiar with the local area. It is good practice to familiarise yourself with the local amenities including local schools, shops, sports and social clubs, transport routes or motorways etc.

Depending on the age group of the tenants, you can tailor your pitch to the relevant resources they may be interested in, e.g. information relevant to families would be schools and local clubs.

5. Have important documents at hand

Make sure you have all the relevant documents at hand for your prospective tenants to read or take away with them. This will speed up the decision of the potential applicant and prompt the tenant to accept your property as their new home.

Relevant Documents

Deposit receipt book
Application form
Copy of house rules (If the property is in an apartment complex)
Terms of rental and additional charges
Copy of Inventory

This blog is from my experience within the letting industry of how to show a property, from conducting thousands of showings. I hope you find it useful. This is the best way, in my opinion, of how to show a property. Please let me know if it makes your life easier!

<a href=”http://www.blogpingsite.com/”>BlogPingSite</a>

August 22, 2013

Landlords negotiation of fees with letting agents

Whats the best approach to take when landlords negotiate fees

Many say the letting industry is currently in a race to the bottom, with letting agencies competing with each other in order to win new business. Some agencies think that by simply reducing their fee structures and marketing this that business will pour in. I would argue the point that whilst it may work well to have a few listings on their books now, it will do greater damage in the long run.

Image Credit Matt Biddulph

A typical example of this is a company reducing its fees to what would appear to be a level where the ability to turn a profit is significantly reduced.

We should all know that in order to provide a professional service, their needs to be some profit in the margin. I mean, if not why go into business? I have no reservations about a company offering a limited time only promotion in order to stand out. For Example – Reducing the fees for the first 3 months of management is an incentive to do business whilst placing a restriction on the discount.

However when I see a letting company offering a letting or management package at a set cost or on a percentage base well below that of the competition, I see this as a race to the bottom. It affects the market, as it becomes a bargaining point for landlords. This normally happens with a landlord with whom you already do business, who will say something like “company X is offering the same package for half of your fee”. It is clear that your landlord is looking for negotiation on fees.

So what can you do here?

Well the obvious first step is to compare service with service. This should allow you to point out that the difference in this fee is that company X are not providing the extras which make the landlord’s life easier.

What if the company offer the same service?

This is typical as company X will market the fact that they offer the complete package with the only difference being the cost. The reality of this is that as industry professionals we understand that it is next to impossible to offer this at the rate advertised and still make a profit. So in reality what the landlord will get is a below-par service at a below market value fee. The only problem is that the landlord will sometimes find it hard to understand this.

So what is the solution in fee negotiation?

I am a big believer in offering more services rather than reducing fees in order to win business. A great way to achieve this is to offer the landlord a service which will cost you less after costs than a reduction in fees. By doing so, you will secure the business whilst increasing the value of your services to the landlord. Give the landlord a free digital inventory reports instead of reducing your fees.This is the best way to handle negotiation of fees.

Image Credit Victor1558

Building Value

A simple way to maintain your fee structure and deal with competitors’ lower pricing is to offer more services for the same value. The skill here is to build value in your additional services. So for example, if I were offering a landlord a free inventory service with my letting service I would ask what type of inventory they currently use. If it does not have detailed photos, I would highlight the important of this.

If the master inventory is not up-to-date, once again I would highlight the importance of this.

Lastly, I would inform the landlord that you can offer a solution to all of these areas, inform them of the value of this, and then remind them that you are going to include it with your letting service for FREE.

Same fees, more value

By doing this, you are creating value for your landlords rather than just dropping price. I must highlight the importance of building value in your additional services, as without these, all the landlord will consider is the lower fee. If you bear this in mind the next negotiation of fees that you will have you will come out the better.
by Andreas Riha

June 20, 2013

How to let a property in the summer

The summer season can be a frustrating time for letting agents, as they have a number of prime location properties that become available at the same time.

How to let a property in the summer

So what’s the problem?

In most cases, there are also a number of other prime location properties that come on the market with other agencies and landlords. As students finish up renting for the end of the academic year, their rental properties will normally come back on the rental market. With the exodus of students, the market sees a huge jump in the number of available units.

How to let a property in the summer

Having a property vacant for as little as 1 week will see a reduction of 2% in annual rent, bring that vacant period forward to a month and you are looking at a reduction in rent of 8%. One of a properties USPs is the rental amount and if you market the property at the rental value today and not at its peak you should see the property being let within a lot quicker time period. Another post of interest may be How to market a rental property.

Look at the numbers

Example1. Rent of €1000 per month. Vacant for 6 weeks

= loss of rent of €1385.

12 month lease =€12,000-€1,385 =€10,615

Example 2. Rent of €950 per month. Vacant for 1 week

= loss of rent at €220

12 month lease = Annual Rent €11,400 – €220= €11,180

Results

Renting for a reduced rent equals a saving of €565

Analysis

Reducing the rent by 5% of the peak renting value actually works out at increasing the landlords annual yield by 5% compared to having a void period of 6 weeks. In my opinion, this is how to let a property in the summer.

The main point here is that if you analyse the figures and discuss it, the landlord should not let the concern of a lower rent today impact the result of a higher annual rental yield.

Going forward

You can try to let the property for a lease term which brings in the property for renewal in August & September in order to increase the yield for your landlord.

By Andreas Riha

June 18, 2013

Tenancy agreement software

One of the most important tasks in renting a property which needs to be completed is the signing of a legally binding contract between the landlord and tenant. This is known as the “tenancy agreement”, “letting agreement” or “lease”. The objective of the contract is to highlight the rights and responsibilities of all parties – landlord, tenant and letting agent.

As a letting agent or property manager, generating a tenancy agreement is normally quite routine, yet time-consuming. The majority of the tenancy agreement remains the same,with the first couple of pages tailored to that of the property and majority of terms or clauses set in stone according to local law.

Tenancy agreement software

Tenancy agreement software created here; at Rentview we have looked at how to save time for you, the letting agent, by streamlining the whole administration process around the letting of a property. Not only will the auto generation of the tenancy agreement save you time, but now all your documents can be stored securely online. Being cloud-based, your data is backed up every hour on multi-site servers, so your data is kept secure and up to date at all times. The tenancy agreement can be shared online with both landlord and tenant.

Through our letting agency software, each process within the cycle is streamlined to save you time when you arrive at your next task along the cycle. Take a look at the overview video on our tenancy agreement software to see exactly how easy Rentview makes this process.

If at this time you prefer not to use the tenancy agreement software and want to continue generating your own tenancy agreements, that is fine. Below we have provided a link to free blank tenancy agreements.

Tenancy agreement UK – AST Blank lease

Tenancy agreement Scotland – AT5 Blank lease

& Tenant information pack Scotland

Tenancy agreement Ireland – Fixed Term blank residential lease

by Rentview

Tenancy agreement software

June 6, 2013

New feature roll outs

As always, the development team are busy at Rentview pushing out new feature roll outs and improvements on our property management software. As always, our users have a big part to play in our feature updates as it is our customers that request them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwgwOb6yT6o?rel=0

Feature Updates

1) Deposit Receipts – are now generated and downloadable from the schedule and they can now also be downloaded when tenants login to access their account.

2) Agency Base Rate – will automatically be used to calculate the management fee when you are adding a new property or starting a new lease. This defaults to a % but can be changed to a figure. Each new property can have a different rate than the base rate.

3) Editing the Rent – if you need to change the rent amount during a lease you can do this now, select ‘Lease’, amend the rent amount, and all future rents will be updated on the remaining unpaid rents.

4) Editing the Management Fee –this change will also apply if you need to change the landlord’s management fee, Select ‘Lease’, amend the rent amount, and all future management fees will be updated on the statement.

5) Tenants’ details – we have also tidied up the tenant’s view page to our new bootstrap style and we will be rolling out a delete option next week here.

6) Total Properties – when checking out your property portfolio we now allow you to see how many properties you have under Management, Let-only or inactive. We also now display how much you charge for your management fee on each property and we will be developing better reports so you can forecast recurring fees.

7) Lease Terms – lastly in this update, when you are starting a lease, the end date will automatically calculate if you select the start date and term.

If there is something you would like to see on the platform, please let us know!

by Rentview

May 22, 2013

Tenant maintenance – Top Tips

Tenant maintenance property management issues

When managing multiple rental properties, it is important to deal with all property management issues in an efficient manner. If you manage a portfolio of 50 rental units, you will be dealing with a considerable amount of potential property management issues within the month. Remember, tenants can call at any time and depending on the urgency of the matter you could receive calls out of hours. I am sure any experienced property manager has received that phone call whilst sitting down to dinner, from over-excited tenants who have lost their keys or set off their alarm.

Make sure you have tenant maintenance procedures in place

tenant maintenance

Credit Image: epSos.de

1. Acknowledge the issue with a prompt reply

Acknowledge the issue with a prompt reply to the tenant to ascertain that you have all the correct information. Once you have noted all of the information from the tenant, inform the tenant that you will update the landlord. Depending on the relationship you have with your landlord or the agreement you have in place, you may be able to make property management decisions without your landlord’s permission. Most letting agencies have an agreement with landlords that any property management issues costing under £200 can be overseen by the agent. If this is the case, make sure that you have this covered in your agreement with your landlord before proceeding.

2. Contact tradesmen immediately

Get onto your handyman or tradesperson immediately to organise a time to fix the problem. Remember some tradespersons will be busy working on different jobs and could possibly let you down at the last minute. It is always useful to have a backup tradesmen you know who could possible give you credit until the rent is collected. If you are a more established letting agent, you may employ your own tradespersons or contractors, so you will know how efficiently they normally operate.

3. Non-emergency property management issues

Aim for a 24-hour turn around for non-emergency property management issues. This is a must to avoid disgruntled tenants from burning your ears by talking about you in a negative way or somehow getting in touch with the landlord. For emergencies, obviously the problem needs to be solved immediately and would most likely involve you visiting the property to deal with the issue head on!

Sure isn’t that why the landlord pays you to manage the property?

Tenant maintenance

Some of the common issues tenants will have:

Plumbing problems
Electric problems
Lost keys
Complaints from neighbours
Parties in the neighbouring property
Washing machine is broken
Fridge is broken
Faulty alarm or forgotten alarm code
Shower pump gone down

The list can go on with many more issues ultimately its how you deal with your tenant maintenance requests that make you a good property manager. Some agencies use task manager software to help them.

by Colin Napper

Articles of interest

Management of communication

Questions to ask tenants

May 14, 2013

Link building strategies

Link Building strategies for your letting agency

Link building for your letting agency website is crucial in order for your site to get listed high on organic search results. In a previous post we discussed the biggest challenge letting agents face today, which was winning new properties to let and manage. We then went on to discuss how to win more landlords with a post on marketing to landlords in 5 Steps.

With so many letting agency websites to compete with it has become essential for you to put an SEO strategy into place.

Link Building strategies

One way search engines rank your website higher against others is by how many times your website gets mentioned on the internet. This term is simply called “inbound links”. The more websites that mention your website the higher search engines rank your own website (Page Rank). Page rank is important as the higher a websites page ranks the higher amount of credibility it gives to its link to you (Link Juice). If you are going to start to build links you need to research link building strategies.

What tools can help you?

A tool you can easily use in your toolbar to see what page rank a website has is available on Google Chrome

A really quick way to find out how many links you currently have going to your site can be found by visiting Alexa. Enter your site url and it will return a link with your number of links.

A useful exercise is to check up with a number of your competitors and see how they are doing. Through some research you could possibly find some websites that can give you some really strong links.

Further research into link building

Probably one of the best articles I have ever come across with regards to Link building strategies is written by Jon Cooper. If there is ever a document I would recommend reading it is this one… by the way it is free and I did not write it 😉

We would be delighted to hear how you get on with your link building strategies and what worked well for you.

by Andreas Riha

Imagecredits Mark Kens

May 7, 2013

Rentview Features

The Rentview team have been busy listening to what our letting agency customers wanted and have made changes and additions to our software.

Rentview.com letting agency software new feature roll outs (by Rentviewsoftware)

As always let us know what you think…

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

April 15, 2013

Property profile page new design

This weekend saw the new design of the property profile page being released. We have been busy listening to our users who have asked for an even quicker way in reconciling rental payments as received and paid to landlords.

property profile page

Now agents can do all of these tasks on the Property Profile Page. However if a rental payment due needs to be edited or history viewed this can still all be done through the Schedule page.

Managing financials

Once your rental payment is received you can process it from your Rentview account to the landlords here also. It will now show the deductions to be taken and held from the rent. You can also click through to the invoice page to add/edit or delete any payments from this invoice. As with the rental schedule page you can also click through to the Statement page to view history etc.

Property Notes

Lastly you can also now add notes to the property which are date stamped with which ever agent left the notes. These notes are for internal use only.

To find out more about how Rentview’s letting agency software can help your letting agency enquire at info@rentview.com

by Rentview

April 9, 2013

Rental marketing video

Following on from our previous video blog on creating your Letting Agency Video Channel, here we can see how to publish a property marketing video on your YouTube station. (by Rentviewsoftware)

Process for editing your rental marketing video

Here is 5 steps in uploading your rental marketing video to YouTube. You will need to create an account as outlined in the above link.

Step 1. Upload the video from your computer or device. If you are using a smart phone or tablet you can easily upload the video by just clicking the upload facility.

Step 2. Start to place SEO information relating to your rental marketing video. It is important to use keywords which you hope to rank with in the Title, Description and tags. For example if your property is located on Manchester Ave you may want the title as “Manchester Ave Apartment to rent” this should also appear in the description.

Step 2a. Include the text to appear in your Facebook or Twitter Feed if you have social media connected with your channel.

Step 3. Advanced settings, will allow you enter details such as location and options to include recording date etc.

Step 4. Once you have everything completed press save and now you edit some of the rental makreting video to include on screen texts and links etc.

Step 5. Promote your rental marketing video in order for you to generate traffic and views. The obvious places of promotion are all your social media channels but also on the description of your rental property.

Why agencies use rental marketing video

The strategy of using a rental marketing video by letting agents to attract tenants allows them to qualify the tenants to the highest level possible. By offering a rental marketing video any potential tenant viewing your property knows that location, price, layout & interior match their expectations.

By using rental marketing videos you are offering more in your marketing services to landlords. With increased competition within the lettings industry having more USP’s will certainly help you attract more listings.

Read more on Strategy in marketing a rental property – which discusses letting agents’ different marketing strategies.

by Andreas Riha

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)