The
relationship landlords have with their letting agent is identical to that relationship
that people have with their bank (personal not business) In fact, 75% of consumers have never even
considered switching their current account, an article I read recently. In fact
in that article, figures showed just 7% of people have switched their current
account in the past two years, compared to 31% who switched energy providers,
26% who switched telephone providers and 22% who switched insurance providers.
I would say 95% of landlords don’t swap agents..
But why?
Cost – most letting agents tie
landlords in, so if they swap whilst there is a tenant in the property, they
have to pay at least 3 months of fees and in some instance, fees equivalent to
a months rent
Frightened - landlords are reluctant to switch agents
because they’re worried something will go wrong – such as their rent or deposit
not being transferred properly or their credit rating getting hurt for example.
Hassle - Landlords will only switch if it’s
easy to do so. And right now it is far from easy and it can take weeks to
complete the switch
Apathy .. very few landlords actively monitor the relative competitiveness of their agent. It’s time consuming because it’s so complicated and people simply don’t want, or have time for the hassle. However, if we really want banks to become more competitive then quite frankly we’re going to have to get off our behinds and start making them work for our business.
...however, if you believe lettings is a people business and not a property business .. then instead of getting a landlord to walk through your door to swap agents, why not encourage them to walk through your door for a chat, anytime, and most certainly way before the tenant hands in their notice. What if you could, over the following months, build a relationship with that landlord?
Surely, if you have done it right, they will say to themselves, "Do you know, I like that Chris bloke at XYZ lettings, the next time my tenant hands in their notice, i might try him with one of my properties" .. then my friends you have hooked them.
How do you get them walk through your door .. read the blog! We are now over 70 posts in .. it tells you exactly how to do it ...
.... and if you are new to this blog, and don't want to read all 70 posts .. here it is my (in)famous 2 minute video that was posted a few weeks ago (regular readers don't need to see it unless you want to see the big lad from Grantham wave his hands about .. very passionate you know about this snizzle)
2 minute video Youtube link