What's in a name?

I recently went to a local landlord gathering in Warrington, i met with some of the local landlords and we had general conversations about the amount of different letting agents in Warrington and what landlords expect from there letting agents, what i found was a lot of agents concentrate so hard on trying to win new business, that as soon as they have won a new landlord over and rented out their property, they pretty much forget about them and start the chase all over again. Wouldn't it be great if they took the time to at least get to know your name, your preferences regarding your property management style and what makes you feel comfortable as a landlord?

With almost 200 properties on our books and over 80 landlords, we are always in contact with a vast number of those people about one thing or another, and where one landlord might be quite liberal and easy going towards the actions of his tenants, another may well have stricter standards – for example, some will allow tenants to decorate to their own style, fix furniture to walls or undertake other improvements such as fitting extra radiators yet another landlord might not allow any of this, with the property having to stay magnolia and with a limited number of picture hooks put into the walls. This is where knowing your client landlords and their preferences adds a personal touch, because as the agent we can then take a lot of the strain and buffer many of the requests that we get from tenants.

So if we get a request for a new fridge for one of Deans properties we already know his answer and how to handle it, whereas for Jane her answer and approach will be different, and on any given day when Kevin calls we immediately know his voice, where his properties are, what his tenants are like and the on-going issues and relationships he and they both have, and all of this means we can tailor our approach towards the very specific nature of the matter at hand and the people involved. We can do this because all of our staff are located in one location, and we are all constantly over-hearing and getting involved what is going on within all of the other roles within the office - there is no outsourcing to a remote call centre, no subcontracting of responsibilities, and you can always reach the same person who has been dealing with an on-going issue at any time.

We don’t offer a ‘one size fits all’ approach because clearly we are all different, the properties are of varying age, condition and specification, and sure as anything we get to see the whole spectrum of human nature demonstrated by tenants (which is in itself a whole blog article for the future). If you were to call your existing agent today, out of the blue, would they have a good enough relationship with you that they could already pre-empt your requests and the way you would like such an outcome to be achieved? Would they even remember your name?

You see, as someone made clear to me some time ago, lettings is not just about property but is more about people and personality, because who would you trust to look after your best interests – someone in it purely for the money, or someone prepared to dedicate the time and effort to building a relationship with you such that trust, confidence, and ultimately a smooth transaction will naturally follow?

You know my name by now, it is Tesh Patel, and our negotiator here is Andy Shaw. We work closely together and are always giving advice to our existing and new landlords in Warrington on what to buy (or not as the case may be). Having this level of detailed information at our fingertips allows us to spot trends in the local market which then enables us to give the very best advice to our clients. We don't charge for that advice as there will be plenty of opportunity to earn our income by finding the best tenants for the landlords in the years to come, so if you want to discuss your options then pop along to our office 6 bankside, crosfield street, for a more detailed conversation, or call either of us personally on 01925 235338.