Marketing Tip For Letting Agents.. Finding A Lodger Easier Than Ever.. ?????? & ?????? ??????? ?? ???????!.. Which Website Is Best To Advertise Room To Let?..
Inspired by the 20 marketing tips from Belvoir Lettings at PropertyOwl’s place.
Here is what we would add to that list:
The 1st photo has to be absolutely outstanding!
There are tons of ads renters have to go through when searching for the right property. If my experienced head is usually literally spinning after an hour of intensive browsing - just imagine the pain new Londoners have to go through. A good first photo would make the search so much more enjoyable but it’s not the only reason why more attention should be paid on that first photo.
You might think that the address is enough to make the renter open your ad but is it true when it comes to those who know nothing about London? Or those who speak very little English? This group is very sensitive to that first photo on the long list of properties.
Take time to think about how to make the first photo so good, that it works like a ad banner that says - LOOK AT ME! It will pay off, mark my words.
Also, changing the first photo after it has been hanging up for too long, could a good idea as well, as it might attract a click from someone who has dismissed the ad before.
The last request would be - please pay attention to details. If there is absolutely nothing else to show, just typical rooms and furniture, then maybe you can find a detail that would intrigue us to open the ad.
A few thoughts on what impact a bad first photo would have:
BAD QUALITY. I have noticed that at some point, when browsing the listings, I would start ignoring properties that have the first photo in very bad quality (blurry, verticals off, odd colours). What this says to me is that no-one really cares about the property. Not now, and probably not after I move in…
NO PHOTO. Ads with no photo belong to the 20th century. Those ads spell “trouble”. Either the apartment is not ready, the agent has not seen it, it’s in a really bad condition, etc.
COMPANY LOGO AS PHOTO. Equals to no photo. Pass!
BORING PHOTOS. House exterior, living room with vanilla walls - the property can go unnoticed if I don’t know the address.
COPY PASTE PHOTO. There is this great apartment for rent at Park Street in Mayfair, which some 3 agents are advertising. All 3 first photos in the list have been taken from the same angle. Nice pictures but one of them could do better! Right now it is just to obvious that there are many agents advertising the same property, and noone seems to bother with marketing although it is quite an expensive apartment.
Guess why I would open all these 3 ads below, as listed in Globrix.
1. Great view. I am intrigued to see more.
2. Looks very interesting, even if it is not to my taste. I want to have a closer look at the details. If there was a photo of the exterior, I would have opened it maybe at a 50/50 chance.
3. Interesting angle of the entrance. Obviously they know how to point out the good points, and I wonder how they present the interior.
In general I would have to say that the situation is not too bad with the first photos, and I’m not complaining too much. It’s just that there’s so much unused potential:)
London estate agents are adopting new tactics to sell houses, writesTelegraph:
Once upon a time they spoke their own lingo – gazumping, contract races and bridging loans – but these days your London estate agent is speaking a new language: a foreign one. Yes, if you phone a branch of Douglas & Gordon and say, in your best Russian accent: “Ya khotel by kupit dom,” the estate agent at the end of the phone will know what you mean. “I want to buy a house.”
We think that’s great. Russian is not an easy language to learn (I speak it myself;)) but knowing the basics would surely be worth while for those agents who cover the areas where they prefer to buy (Lowndes Sq?) and rent (Mayfair?). Douglas & Gordon should now make a Russian version of their website or at least write a ????? ?????????? welcome note, like the one over at Harrods Estates.
Say you’re renting a room in a flat, where at some point one of the tenants is moving out. The landlord might let you choose your new flatmate, provided you find him/her yourself. Where should you advertise the room?
This question was actually asked in LandlordZone forum but we’ll ask the same question for London specifically:
Which website is best to advertise a room to let in London?
What would you recommend and why?
Here is the list of websites that we know of: EasyRoommate.com Lots of latmates, flatshares FlatmateClick.co.uk Good selection of flatmates & flatshares
Gumtree Clasifieds site. Post room wanted or room available Live Simply Listings from private landlords only MoveFlat.co.uk Flatshares Spareroom.co.uk Flat- & houseshares, flat- & roommates
WINKWORTHWest End
Address: 55 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BS
Areas covered: Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Mayfair, Soho Jump to Winkworth West End website
Graph from the Knight Frank’s latest research Autumn 2008 London Residential Review (*pdf).
Prime central London, according to Knight Frank, is: Belgravia, Chelsea, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Marylebone, Mayfair, Notting Hill, Regent’s Park, Riverside and St John’s Wood.
Renters are advised to not to pay rent up front for more than 1 month when moving into a property, unless they have proof that the landlord has not fallen behind with his mortgage payments. The number of buy-to-let investors who are in arrears, and face losing their property, has soared in the last 3 months.
Chris and Siobhan Taylor rented a five-bedroom house in Loughton, Essex, in August. They paid £48,000 upfront for the year after being offered a £6,000 discount. Now settled in, they have discovered that their landlord is already tens of thousands of pounds behind on his mortgage repayments.
‘We are feeling very vulnerable. We had no idea when we rented the property that this could happen. We just assumed that everything was OK. We face losing all our money and our deposit, or having to go to court, should the lender want to repossess during our one-year tenancy,’ says Siobhan, 39.
The Taylors have fallen into a gaping hole in the legislation covering tenants. As their rent is more than £25,000 a year, they had to sign a standard tenancy contract, not an assured shorthold tenancy contract, which would have given them a raft of protection.
It also means their initial £7,850 deposit was given directly to the landlord rather than being held by a third party under the Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme.
It would normally be up to the letting agent to check that the landlord’s lender knows about the property being rented out but do not count on it - it would be wise to always ask for some sort of proof on paper.
The annual Buy-To-Let guide published on Monday by the Association of Residential Letting Agents ARLA contains a lot of valuable information for not only landlords but tenants as well.
We found this excellent overview of the key elements of a tenancy, which lists the legislation requirements of England/Wales and Scotland (page 21 of the guide).
ARLA stresses in the article accompanying this table that tenants should always insist on a written agreement (although it is not a legal requirement) in order that they are aware of all their obligations and also those of their landlord. They advise not to settle for an agreement that is bought from newsagents, as it might not be up to date. By the way - ARLA standard tenancy agreement runs to some 20 pages!
Draught can be a major source of discomfort, increasing your heating costs by up to 25% in the winter. It is said that if all the sources of draughts in a typical home were added together, it would be equivalent to having a 1.5 metre by 1.0 metre hole in the wall!
This HomeServe video here will give you a few ideas on how you can fix the drafty windows and doors. But make sure you notify your landlord before you do any insulation by yourself, as the materials you use could be damaging to the property.
This better be fiction or not happening to London letting agents:
While B, our lettings agent, stumbles through the door shaking water and possibly excess alcohol from her face - I know about the gin bottle in her glove box, and agents are resorting to drink as the market crumbles with an inevitability I long predicted - I ponder how much longer I’ll be staying.
Plaza Estatesconfirms that the prices of the very top end of the market have actually seen increase in the last few months:
Business has been excellent at the top end of the market with the usual seasonal demand for family houses / large flats and rents have held from due to a shortage of suitable property. This sector of the market has in fact seen rent increases.
Renters of the top end properties have very specific needs, and even though it’s L o n d o n, it’s very hard to find a place that meets all the needs and standards the tenant has grown accustomed to.
We came across this great niche site, which all the pet owners should love - PetFriendly.co.uk lists long term and holiday rentals in UK, where our small or big, furry or feathery friends, are welcome. The website is farely new but since advertising long term rentals is for free, they’ll probably have more London ads in the future as the word spreads.
I don’t think I ever saw the option of searching for a horse-friendly property on any other website before, although they get even more specific than that. For example, the landlord who says OK to dogs in the property can choose which breeds are not allowed.
Should you want to take your pet along on a vacation or a short stay somewhere in the UK - the holiday accommodation search will be of great help.
Further job cuts in the City over the remainder of 2008 and 2009 mean we expect rental values in central London to fall by -7% from their peak, predicts the latest Savills‘ market report.
- The rental market in prime central London suffered at the hands of the weakened employment outlook in the City which led to a reduced demand for rental property. For the first time since 2003, rental growth across prime central London was negative, falling by -1.4% by Q3.
- So far this year and particularly more recently, activity has been strongest in the lower price bands with applicants who are employed in the financial sector choosing to rent. High levels of demand coupled with additional supply from buyers unable to sell their properties, is likely to keep rental growth in check over the coming months.
- The most vulnerable part of the market and where the downturn in corporate tenants
