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Letting market all set to perform well over the coming years for properties in cities across Ireland

Only last week the Irish independent ran its front page with the Headline:

Young couples told ‘rent, don’t buy’ as prices keep falling 

Thousands of potential first-time house buyers were last night told to rent rather than buy as prices are forecast to continue falling for the next two years. Read more – Irish Independent

And today the latest press reports suggest that residential rental values could rise as much as 14% by 2013.

Rents predicted to rise as more hold off buying

Figures from real estate firm Savills show that after dropping by 25% from 2008 peak levels, rents are now on the rise again.  Read more – Irish Examiner

To Let signs

Whilst the latest Daft report shows nearly a 30% reduction in stock in vacant properties available since 2008- Daft report

Daft.ie stock report

All this points to a very strong rental market in Ireland for the future.

With a lack of credit and no confidence in the property market demand is high for a shrinking amount of rental stock.

 

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Setting up your Google places page for your agency.

So now that you have your Google Analytics set up, let’s focus on getting more visitors to your site.

Google places is a great way to build traffic to your site for FREE.  Google places (map listings ) are now placed with the organic search results (non-paid results), with many Place pages located near the top of the results page. It will also increase your presence, giving you a boost in your organic search traffic. By setting up your Google places page you are ensuring your information is easily found and potential customers can find out more information on your businesses.

1 – Make or claim your Google Places Page

Your business may already have a Places page, even if you never set one up. Search for your brand name to see if one already exists. If there is a listing for your business, click to the place page and look for the “business owner?” link, then follow the instructions to claim it. If there is no places page for your business already, then start a new one at google.com/places.

2 – Verify Your Google Places Page

Next, verify your Google Places Page. You must verify that you are the business owner or else your listing will not be trusted by search engines. Unless it is verified, your listing might not appear in the search results, or how often it appears may be limited.

Verifying is simple, but it will take some time. When setting up your Places page, follow the instructions. Alternatively, click the ‘verify’ link when logged in to your places account. You will have to wait for a postcard to be delivered to your business address within 2-3 weeks (though you may get the option to receive a phone call instead).

Once your Places page is verified, you should optimise your page and make it easier for potential customers to find you.

  • Include keywords in the description of your Google Places page  – Describe your business; keep it short and sweet. Include some keywords. Use Google Adwords keyword planner (this was Keyword tool) to help you to better understand what potential customers are typing in when they search for a service like yours. Don’t go for overkill though, just a few relevant keywords should do the trick!
  • Optimise your business title – In Google Places your business name should be your title. This could also include some information on your location.  Google Adwords keyword planner should be useful again here.
  • Choose some appropriate categories – You can include up to five categories and this matters, however you should include only those categories which are relevant to your business.
  • Complete your Places page as much as possible – The more complete you can make your Google Places page the better. This gives you an edge over less complete pages in Google’s eyes. Some information you may want to include is; your opening hours, additional agency information, links to your properties advertised on pportal sites, and social media links. All this will make your pages more appealing to potential clients too.

4 –Rankings  for Google places

Citations and mentions are more important than links to your website within Google Places, it is widely believed. Measuring the ‘buzz’ around certain local businesses or sites can be difficult for search engines so they try to take into account any mentions online. This is becoming more popular with the use of smart phones. You can look for chances to gain citations through –

  • Directories – Create a listing in any major directories; just be sure that your information is consistent across all listings you have online.
  • Review sites – Reviews give search engines a signal that your business is a real place that is known and liked (or disliked) by real people. Try to get reviews from your landlords on your services online.
  • Local Resources & Events Pages – Look for local directories, business listings, and event pages for opportunities to list your site.  Check out competitors – visit their Google Places pages and see where their citations are coming from (you’ll see a list of links titled “more about this place” at the bottom of the page, which is a great place to start.)

5 – Optimize your website and be sure they can find you!

Good SEO for your website makes perfect sense as this willup your ranking in Google searches and attract visitors. This is also a good citation for your Google Places page. Include contact details in a prominent place on your website so that visitors can find them easily.

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The Daily Business Post: Startup Of The Day: Rentview

Company: Rentview

Founders: Colin Napper, Andreas Riha

What it does: the company has created a cloud-software system that allows property agencies and landlords to manage their properties and any issues arising around those properties.

Development stage: active, product now on sale

Funding: none announced

Website: Rentview.com

While property sales may have slumped, property rentals have not. And, with an historically large stock of housing in the country, competition among agencies and among landlords is fierce. Competition puts pressure on resources. For landlords and agencies, time spent cataloguing and administering individual properties – and their inventory – is a luxury that is becoming increasingly scarce.

That’s where Rentview comes in. The Dublin-based firm has come up with automation software that creates an easy-to-use administration system for agencies, landlords and tenants.

“If you’re an agency or a landlord and don’t have software, you used to manage your rents in an Excel file or diary saying that rent is due on this date or that date,” said Colin Napper, the company’s chief executive. That has an awful lot of implications if it’s not marked off properly.”

Day-to-day things become crucial, said Andreas Riha, the company’s sales and marketing chief.

“You have tenants looking for documentation,” he said. “You also have landlords coming in for end-of-year accounts, plumbers invoices, fees and more.”

Rentview’s system involves doing an inventory of the stock and conditions of a property, which can then be catalogued using the system’s smartphone app.

The system costs €100 per month for up to 100 properties.

So far, the product is being trialled with 18 agencies who, among them, have 600 landlord clients and 1,500 tenants. Feedback has been positive, and a white-labelling service is being considered.

For Rentview, Ireland is just the beginning. While there are 1,600 property and letting agencies here, that pales in comparison with an estimated 25,000 agencies in Britain.

“At the end of the day, if you have a happy landlord who’s had a good service, he’s gonna keep you on and then refer you on,” said Napper.

Contact journalist: adrian@businesspost.ie. Contact desk: digital@businesspost.ie.

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Track your website visitors with Google Analytics

Analytics matter!

Probably the most important part of updating your web presence and marketing your site is the ability to measure the results of your new work. Therefore it is necessary to learn how to set up Google Analytics in order to track the visitors to your website. There is no point in putting money into advertising if you can not track your website visitors and where they came from. The same is true for creating a social media presence for your agency – you want to know what is working… right?

Track your website visitors

A great FREE site for tracking these statistics and probably the most popular, which is relatively easy to set up, is Google Analytics. It shows you how people found your site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their user experience. With this information, you can improve your website return on investment, increase visitors to customers and increase your revenue.

track-your-website-visitors

So if you have set up a new business Facebook account, invested in some online advertising or put a blog together; through Google Analytics you can see where your visitors found your site, what they viewed and even what page they exited your site on. 

So rather than putting a whole blog together informing you how to set this up, I’m sharing an invaluable link with you – this internet marketing company have put this great blog together on setting up Google Analytics so you can track your website visitors easily.

Tip:

If you do not have access to the back end of your website you may need your web developer and publisher to insert this into your site. It will take no longer than an hour for a professional, so make sure they do not look to charge you an arm and a leg! 

It will be well worth learning how to track your website visitors over time, you will gather data about your web traffic that will help you devise better business strategy. Try it!

If you have any questions please feel free to ask andreas@rentview.com I would love to help you.

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Increasing your property portfolio through the web

Having met with lots of different agencies over the last couple of months it appears that most, if not all agencies, are looking to expand and build their property portfolio for lettings and management. 

So how can your agency increase its property portfolio?

Attract more landlords to your agency

If you want to increase your property portfolio, you’ll need to attract landlords first. The easiest way to do this is to attract them to your website.   Your website should be the main port of call and act as a hub for activity. You need to have contact information clearly available on your website. Potential clients should be able to see 2 things from a quick glance at your website:

  1. what services you offer
  2. how to contact you

If you think about it, your website is like your international shop window. It could therefore gain you a lot of business. Equally, by not investing time effort (and some money) in a website, you are losing out on potential custom. After all, in today’s economic climate, landlords are increasingly based all around the world and these accidental landlords who may have initially rented the property prior to emigrating may now need assistance letting a property and/or managing one. New non-resident landlords are the customer most agencies are currently focusing their advertising towards. The non-resident landlord is most likely to take your full property management package and with property management software like Rentview, you are fully equipped to offer your landlords the ultimate management package.

Checklist

So it is very important to have your website:

  • looking well
  • regularly updated
  • attracting new visitors
  • analytics set up to track visitor trends
  • linked to your social media

increase-your-property-portfolio-with-social-media

Over the next few blog posts, I will take you through how to do all of this in some very easy to follow steps. All of these elements should help you to increase your property portfolio by harnessing the power of the web.

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Rentview Inventory

Www.Rentview.com Set to Launch Inventory App for both App store and Android Smart phones

Summary: A brief look at how letting agents can reduce time and money spent on inventory reporting for landlords /tenants and reduce likelihood of disputes over deposit retention related to inventory condition.

The role of inventory in property management: Inventory is a factor involved in any tenancy agreement, a tenant must be happy with the property contents and its condition throughout before entering into a tenancy agreement and a landlord must do same when ending the tenancy and returning the security deposit to the departing tenant.

Problems that arise over Inventory in Property management: Often, a tenant and landlord or property manager may come into conflict over issues related to inventory, Irishlandlord.com writes ‘One of the most common areas of dispute between landlord and tenant relates to the contents of the property and its condition’, unfortunately the current practices for recording inventory of a property is extremely out dated and will prove very difficult to stand up in a legal dispute.

The Rentview Inventory App: Set to launch on the app and android stores in just over two weeks Rentview will set a new standard in the residential lettings market throughout Ireland for protecting both landlords , agents and tenants by using modern technology to provide detailed inventory reports that can be carried out on any Smart phone! This will save you valuable time and money as a property manager!

But where does the info go and how will I protect us against claims? But wait that’s not all, current and future users of the Rentview property management software will be able to upload their reports (VIA The Cloud) onto their Rentview accounts for safe storage. Access can be shared with a landlord or tenant by agent. If either party have anything to add to the report they can do so and a copy is then printed before a tenancy commences signed by both tenant and property manager.

About Rentview: Rentview is an internet based property management software solution designed by two former property managers with over 12 years experience in the Irish market. The software was developed to Manage, Build and Retain an agencies property portfolio, no matter what the size! Rentview Inventory only furthers our goals of saving property mangers hours of time per week, potential disputes with tenants and decreasing the overall costs associated with managing a property.

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Recession in Ireland affects rent

The current property market in Ireland is stabilising since the dramatic effect the recession had on the market over the last few years, there is in fact more and more people looking to rent a property rather than buy with the difficulties in securing mortgages growing.

The Irish market unfortunately is seeing increased problems with tenant’s ability to make their rental payments on time with thousands of tenants falling into arrears and the PRTB is already backlogged with tenancy and landlord disputes. It can take up to six months for a case to have its first hearing in an effort to resolve issues. With the current overload of disputes this can result in a potential large loss for property owners.

 Non-paying tenants are every agency and landlord’s nightmare, with more and more tenants entering into tenancy agreements and not being able to meet the terms (many due to issues beyond their control i.e. job losses). Landlords and other property owners can potentially lose many months rent through problem tenants as the legal procedure is a very slow process in Ireland.

recession-in-ireland

Why are there so many tenants defaulting on rent? 

The property market is becoming more and more competitive now. Agencies are always keen to let their properties as soon as possible. The process of finding the best tenant and monitoring payments correctly and communicating with tenants can be too hazy and in adequate at times. Tenants will often string a landlord or agent on for weeks promising to pay the rent or paying it off in small sums and if the landlord does decide to legally pursue the tenant it will be a further 6+ weeks before the landlord is rid of the problem tenant and able to re-let the property.

 Some obvious answers here are the recession in Ireland leading to a huge loss of jobs in the Irish economy and many genuine cases of tenants entering into an agreement and then suffering a severe reduction in their income. However, many of the tenants causing headaches for property managers and landlords are simply abusing the legal system to stay in properties and not pay their rent. I have heard of one particular case where a tenant has bounced from property to property in the same area as he leaves each landlord in arrears and facing a significant loss of income. How can tenants get away with this?

 Other reasons can be poor relationships and communication between property managers and tenants leading to disputes over rents and deposits and more cases being brought to the PRTB.

Due to the recession in Ireland, letting agents and property managers must work twice are hard to win landlords and get good tenants.

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