Do we give great service?

Property market - good or bad news for landlords?

It's hard to know who to believe, rents are supposed to be rocketing yet the CBI predicts a fall in output and 3 milion unemployed by the next election. So who will have the money to pay for increased rents? For the moment, the letting market is very bouyant and we could do with more properties, so if you have any friends who are landlords please tell them about us. One aspect that might be of interest, Fathom/Zoopla Auction Price Index has forecast a significant property price drop during 2011. This doesn’t help anyone thinking of selling, but the upside is that you know not to waste time and risk losing a tenants by trying to market a property. Our advice would be to hold tight for another year, as getting an estate agent in to value a property for a potential sale can make even the most relaxed of tenants nervous and more likely to give notice.

Increased rents? Take a look behind the figures

The much trumpeted increase in demand for rental property might be good news for landlords, but does this really mean rents are rocketing? Not according to industry analysts. Repossessions, redundancies and lack of available mortgages may be pushing more people in to the rental market, but 2010 also showed an increase in rent arrears.



In our experience, well maintained and good quality properties let better than ever, but the recession has seen landlords cutting corners on property maintenance. This might work in the short term, but professional tenants are definitely being more particular about the property quality and expect landlords to jump when things go wrong. This can cause issues for overseas or absent landlords, unless they have a managing agent like us in place to jump when a tenant has a problem and find cost effective solutions. We also provide an exceptionally good Rent Guarantee Insurance which might be worth consideration if lost rental income would be a real issue for you as a landlord. It's always worth a call to talk it through. 

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Winds of change

This year we have made a significant investment in a recognised professional letting and management software system – CFP WinMan. The system will help us streamline our administrative tasks and give us more time to spend with you and on letting and managing your property.

As we get to grips with the features we will be introducing new services such as SMS and MMS messaging to get your property out to tenants faster and increasing our online marketing exposure. But rest assured, we won’t let the whizzy technology take over. As Trevor keeps reminding us, and frequently demonstrates, nothing beats a good old fashioned phone call or face to face conversation.

The change will take place on 1st April, auspicious choice or what!

Empty property alert. Turn on the heating!

As the recent very cold spell starts to thaw, absent landlords of empty properties have been rueing the day they turned off the heating. Water damage creates chaos and, as some unfortunate landlords are discovering if you have no heating on your insurance may well be invalid. If your property is likely to be empty our strong recommendation is to make sure the heating comes on at least twice a day. Midnight and again at midday for one-two hours might cost you a small amount in fuel, but it beats a soggy property that is unlettable. Rachel says, “I used to work for a major national developer and this was always their advice to avoid burst pipes and frozen toilets, both of which we’ve seen in empty properties this winter”. She added, “Manufacturers set their boilers to click on at 5° degrees, but this can be changed to 3° which should be sufficient. You will need to select the frost setting in the first instance to activate this programme, prior to leaving your property vacant. Warm homes always let better too, in my experience”.

 

Gas Safety Checks - the old chestnut!

Our managed landlords already know we have this firmly under control. For landlords our Tenant-Find service landlords, can we just remind you your Gas appliances, including ovens, hobs, gas boilers and gas fires, should be checked at least once a year by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Without these checks you could be putting your tenants at risk of Carbon Monoxide poisoning. One call and we’ll take it off your hands not just this year but year on year!  And we don't charge for organising this on your behalf, its all part of the service, you just pay for the registered engineers cost. Email our lovely Ciya, who will help make sure you're legal and organise a check for you bristol@medicsonthemove.co.uk.

Can we manage more homes for you?

We always have  plenty of excellent, fully professional tenants, who we fully reference without fail, looking for property. We are also keen to increase our managed portfolio (someone has to keep Caroline in wine and good food) so if you have more than one property, lets get together and talk about our special terms for multiple managements.

Finally – join the Tweety Pies

Movingtobristol is on Twitter, we already have a number of followers, we're still surprised that people like to follow us and have made some helpful contacts. If you’re getting to grips with the ‘interesting’ culture of Tweets. Join us and contribute/respond, we’ll follow you if you follow us……

http://twitter.com/movingtobristol

Finally, finally - summer holiday opportunities

Looking for a summer holiday home or just a relaxing weekend away? Take a look at this lovely holiday home in Appledore, North Devon Granbelles, Appledore, North Devon and for more pics and details see http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/england/e2347.htm  If you’re interested in getting away from it all email trevor@irsha.co.uk 

If you have a holiday home you’d like to promote to our landlords and web site visitors, call Jenny on 0117 9442051 or email jenny@irsha.co.uk and she’ll add it to our web site completely free of charge.  

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