Your Lettings Forecast
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This 'Lettings Forecast' quiz has been designed to help letting agents to determine whether their business would benefit from outsourced back-office lettings functions, such as property management, rent collection and/or tenancy administration. We've playfully categorised the results into weather types and each time a quiz is completed, we will send out a weather report on our social media sites. Will you be the next 'ray of sunshine'. . . .? Take the test to find out!
- 1.Have your team ever forgotten to arrange for a gas safety check to be undertaken - resulting in a property being left with an expired record?
- A.
Never!
- B.
Very rarely.
- C.
Sometimes, but only when the person responsible has been on annual leave.
- D.
Fairly frequently.
- 2.Have you ever felt frustrated because you cannot offer the same benefits to your landlords as the larger corporate letting agencies in your area can?
- A.
No, not at all. Our service outshines everyone else.
- B.
Occasionally we lose instructions to the larger letting agents.
- C.
In some ways yes, but we work with what we've got.
- D.
Definitely. We'd love to be able to offer the same services as the larger corporate agents.
- 3.Have you ever felt overwhelmed with all the important things you cannot get accomplished, such as marketing for new landlords, because you have too many distractions, e.g. tenancy paperwork, chasing rents and/or instructing contractors?
- A.
No. We have people assigned to different roles to ensure all tasks are accomplished just as they should be.
- B.
Sometimes, but generally only when team members are on annual leave.
- C.
In the busier months, yes, this can be an issue - but in the quieter months everything runs smoothly.
- D.
All the time. There never seems to be enough hours in the day.
- 4.Have you had more than 5 percent staff turnover in the past year?
- A.
No - we have a loyal team of staff that have worked together for years.
- B.
Not quite 5% but close to it.
- C.
Yes, but no more than 10%
- D.
Yes - we feel like we are constantly recruiting and never finding the right people.
- 5.Do you and your team know that there are over 100 regulations and legislations that affect the private rental industry?
- A.
Yes, we can all recite them off by heart.
- B.
Yes, and we're all aware of most of them.
- C.
Yes, but we don't know what they all are.
- D.
No....surely there cannot be that many!?
- 6.Are you confident that your legal tenancy administration documents are up-to-date?
- A.
Yes.
- B.
Yes, I think so.
- C.
They should be. We purchased a template on-line.
- D.
No, probably not.
- 7.Do you have a structured renewals process in place - which includes rent reviews?
- A.
Yes, we have the required processes in place.
- B.
We tend to put reminders in our diary system and generally that works OK.
- C.
No, we don't offer a renewals service to our landlords - tenancies become periodic.
- D.
No - we tend to only have time for this when we are chased by the landlord or tenant.
- 8.Are less than 0.5% of the properties which you collect for in rent arrears?
- A.
Yes.
- B.
Probably a little bit more than that - up to 5%.
- C.
No, over 5% are in arrears.
- D.
I have no idea - we've never calculated the percentage.
- 9.Has your team ever missed an important detail causing you to either compensate the landlord and/or endure frustration?
- A.
No, this has never happened to us.
- B.
This has happened once or twice, but we've looked to put procedures in place to learn from our mistakes!
- C.
It's been known to happen from time to time - but mostly due to in experienced staff members.
- D.
Yes - this constantly happens.
- 10.Do you, or any members of your team, handle your out-of-hours emergency calls using a mobile phone?
- A.
No. We outsource our out-of-hours calls to a call handling service.
- B.
We give tenants our contractors details to contact in case of an emergency.
- C.
Yes, this is how we handle out-of-hours emergencies.
- D.
No. No one answers these calls, tenants can leave a message on the answering machine and we pick the message up the next working day.
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