Morning people... currently on a train down to London. Up at stupid a'clock (5.30am) and if everything goes well, should be back in Grantham by 9.30pm. A Ietting agency chain have asked me to give a training session in Berkshire for 15 of their letting agents to teach them the dark arts of 'landlord farming'.. wish me well!
.... oh, hold on,you know when you need get something off your chest.. the bl**dy the dog (Joey) didnt even raise his head to greet me this morning .. although neither would I at that time of morning. Here is a picture of him I took at the weekend
Anyway, less of the dog, back to the blog... Trust is is what its all about today. Being a letting agents is all about trust, isn’t it? Everything we do is based on trust. A landlord trusts us to look after his/her property. Letting agencies extract massive value from the relationships they have with landlords, employees, tenants and trades people. Yes, it's possible to trust a lettings agency, landlords do it all the time... but that trust doesn’t come for free
.... oh, hold on,you know when you need get something off your chest.. the bl**dy the dog (Joey) didnt even raise his head to greet me this morning .. although neither would I at that time of morning. Here is a picture of him I took at the weekend
Anyway, less of the dog, back to the blog... Trust is is what its all about today. Being a letting agents is all about trust, isn’t it? Everything we do is based on trust. A landlord trusts us to look after his/her property. Letting agencies extract massive value from the relationships they have with landlords, employees, tenants and trades people. Yes, it's possible to trust a lettings agency, landlords do it all the time... but that trust doesn’t come for free
There are two key choices a lettings agency makes to be trusted in
the long term. Firstly, you could take some easy choices and take some shortcuts.
There are always shortcuts available to a letting agent, always ways to make
money sooner rather than later, plenty of chances to do a little less or charge
a little more. However, secondly, you could
take the difficult choices. Everyone knows it’s not easy or expedient for you
to keep every promise, especially the little ones. To keep those promises can
be expensive or a hassle or psychologically risky for you to extend yourself
and your lettings agency, but that’s where the trust is earned.
So, the next time you or your team say things like ...
- “Its in the terms of business, page 11, paragraph 6, subsection C, sub-subsection 56 that we can do that and charge you for it”
- “You will have to complain to Customer Services, here is their number” (one for the corporate agents)
- “I know Jane told you that, but she left here two weeks ago,”
- “Well yeah, we used to do that, but too many tenants took advantage of us and we can’t do it for you, so we are going to have to charge you”
- or, most common of all, saying nothing at all,
..... then yes, landlords
and tenants trust you less.
That is because we really prefer to trust people,
and when people stop acting like really (honest) people, we trust them less. It’s
easy to seduce yourself Mr or Mrs letting agent into believing that you can be trusted, at the same time
you take short-term profits and cut corners when it suits you.
Sorry .. this is the real world
Now, go get me some landlords people!
Shalom