With the demand for rental property so high, we’ve noticed changes in the trends for how people are searching and applying for properties.
Whereas in the past we’d have always relied on the portals, we’ve found that our reliance on these is (thankfully) getting less and less.
Don’t worry, we’ve not got rid of the portals, however, we did find they were creating unnecessary work. Marketing on Zoopla, RightMove and OnTheMarket was giving us too many erroneous leads and the process was becoming inefficent, so for the past couple of months we’ve been experimenting with how we market our properties. Our verdict, and the process we have found to currently be the most manageable and successful, is:
This gives us more than enough applicants to organise a block booking and it is pretty much guaranteed we’ll get at least 5 applications from those viewings and a good quality tenant!
We’ve also found renters are looking to build direct relationships with our agency because the properties they see on the portals have gone by the time we enquire. Once again we’re seeing people calling us and walking into our offices to speak to our agents about the properties we have available, which we love to see. If we aren’t able to help them, we add them to our applicant list so they’ll receive alerts as soon as properties come up that match their criteria.
Basically, we’re working smarter but we’re getting the same, if not better, outcome for our clients. This time is valuable because there’s so much more to managing a property than finding a tenant and we can focus on ensuring our clients, their properties and ensure everyone is adhering to all the necessary rules and regulations.
As a company we are always evolving and will continue to monitor the markets and adapt our ways of working to suit.
