Important Notice ref Copy Cat Agent in Bournemouth

Tailor Made

Its spelt with an "I" its the mark of our Letting Agency and the Sandbanks estate agent in Poole Dorset a family business and an independant agency established in 1992.

Tailor Made Lettings is a dedicated rental agency trading from the Poole town centre offices at Poole end of Longfleet Road.

Tailor Made estate agency is located on the Sandbanks peninsula opposite the main beach car park.

Neither of these offices have any connection to the agent of similar name based in Bournemouth

I am making this statement as people are becoming confused by an agent in Bournemouth who has chosen to trade under the name Taylor Made spelt with a "Y" and has chosen to have estate agent boards a banner/logo that is blue and white similar to our Logo.

The reason the other agent has done this is very obvious and because of the confusion it is causing I have from time to time set the record straight on various social media including linkedin twitter and facebook.

websites for Tailor Made Letting agents www.tailormadelettings.co.uk run by Francis Payne

Tailor Made estate agents www.tmea.biz run by Adrian Dunford

The residential lettings game is your agent minimising the risk or are sales his forte

The professional approach by Tailor Made Letting Agents in Poole Dorset So your a landlord and you hopefully you have found a tenant with a great job and good credit score. So what more can go wrong ? Plenty says Jamie Rolls of Tailor Made Management "In my experience it happens so often where a Landlord deals direct with a tenant that things turn to pot as essentially there can be a clash of personalities over the most minor of issues resulting in failed co-operation" Are you a Landlord who has fallen out with the tenant where the tenant has then gone out of his way to make things as difficult as possible for you directly or through your property agency. Or maybe you are a Landlord and the tenant has fallen out with your Agent. What then?

Residential property management is in many ways a game of chess. A professional experienced rental agent will have come across every possible scenario over many years and learned through their own mistakes or systems what works and what will exacerbate problems as opposed to resolving them. An agent worth his salt will know that in dealing with a rented property issue that tackling the matter in the wrong way can result in total breakdown in communications between all concerned. A letting agent is in-fact only a middle man, yet reality is that he is working for the person that pays him "the owner". The Letting agent therefore must take the role of ambassador to achieve the best result for all concerned. Not easy when your paymaster is the owner yet the tenant is expecting a great service from the agent they chose to rent through.

So the Letting Agent must never fall out with a tenant they must at all costs maintain the communication irrespective of how testing and difficult a tenant may prove to be. The best agents have deaf ears to insults and will simply do what they need to do to make the problem go away. So when a tenant has had no electricity for two days and several electricians cannot find the cause a good agent will ensure that the tenant remains in the loop of every effort made to tackle the issue. Even if its only one line texts or emails. If the tenant can see that there is something happening then it will soften the frustration. Left alone without any news and you may get them festering and be on your way to trading insults, a situation that will leave a barrier between you and the tenant for the rest of the contract.

Maintaining good communication is where a letting agent will excel. At Tailor Made Lettings we have always looked to manage a tenants expectations whilst carrying out the Landlords instructions. The best way to achieve this is to leave very little to chance. The main keyword used in our office is Preconditioning. This means that from day one of marketing a property our policy of preconditioning becomes effective. If an inventory is done attach the carpet cleaning receipt to it and the cleaners bill. In the letter enclosing the inventory mention the clean has been done in readiness for their occupation. prior to the end of the tenancy if they are vacating in a letter make sure you precondition the tenant and recall the cleaning bill suggest that they may like to use the same cleaners where 2 cleaners spent 5 hours cleaning internally. In this way it may mean the tenant will not ask their own cleaning lady to come in for an hour and dust down. This is one example of many where proper management is ensuring a happy ending.

So many times I have been to Letting Agent seminars listened to a speaker then met with fellow agents in the bar and listened to stories of how they do not take any nonsense from a tenant and give them what for. Recently i met an estate agent just going into the property rental business because of the recession, she commented on how after a property inspection she gave the tenant hell because of the state the apartment was in. You can bet your life that the tenant on the firing end of such attitude was belittled and most probably alienated. This means that the Landlords representative may have lost the ability to be able to sensibly deal with the tenant in the future.

Examples The Inspection process My approach to inspections is to drop the tenant a friendly email along the lines of "hi we are due to make a report to the landlord on the progress of the tenancy are there any issues we need to make him aware of. Also advise if we can pop in and do a routine inspection as we would like to confirm to the owner that the apartment is well maintained and would like to send the owner a few pics to support this" Then if an inspection is made and the place is a state, do not go off on one. My line is "thanks for letting us inspect the property it may have been too short notice as photographing it as it was would not reflect well, maybe we can pop back middle next week. What day would be best for you"

The Deposit issue Experience has shown that where good preconditioning has been performed there is less likelihood of fall-outs between parties. Hence prior to a tenant vacating we offer as part of our service a fast track tenant deposit return system where we help the tenant make sure that everything is booked to be done before the hand back day. Again precondition a tenant in a letter suggesting they book a carpet cleaner in early so to avoid stress last minute if none are available. We offer our own people to meet and quote to clean carpet clean or put right any damages. That way we are seen to be working with the tenant to get back the deposit.

Another common error made by many agents renting property is to receive a report from a tenant about some accidental damage. When a tenant reports the damage they often say they will sort it out when they leave and the agent simply thinks yes great make a note of that. This to me is not the correct way to deal with accidental damage. When a tenant leaves a property their minds are usually on the next home not the one they are in. As with all moves costs arise beyond their initial expectations. The last thing a tenant will want to sort out is spending money on the property they are vacating so they move hoping the burnt carpet will have been forgotten. The key here is to tackle the problem on the day you are told about it mid tenancy. Again a letter to thank the tenant for bringing this to your attention and for wanting the matter dealt with and tell the tenant you will send in your carpet man to quote for the damage and you will shop around to find a bargain deal for the tenant. Notify the owner you have sourced a replacement and get the job done ASAP. It means one less issue at the end. These are but a few simple ways in which to tackle matters efficiently. If you have belittled insulted or upset the tenant in anyway then if the day comes he gets made redundant and cannot pay the rent he will simply clam up and avoid having to visit the arrogant agent who he cannot stand.

For the Letting agent Communication is king. I hope you can see that good methodology works and to benefit from such fine tuning can only mean using a specialist property manager. Do you really think the sales agent who dabbles in lettings to pay his stationary bill and rent will have a strategy. Lets face it for the sales agent when the sales market gets busy it will be all hands to the pump. That's the way it is down at the Tailor Made Sandbanks Dorset office and hence we have a separate office and team for rrental management office in Poole town centre.

Tailor Made Letting Agents 234 High Street North Poole Dorset BH15 1DY www.tailormadelettings.co.uk tel. 01202 673454

Sandbanks property rental strong for luxury homes Poole Dorset

Letting Agents Tailor Made Lettings have rented out Ripplesea a beautiful home on the Sandbanks bay in Poole Dorset

This beautiful home has been rented on long term rental contract and the new occupants will enjoy panoramic harbour views and the bustling waterside activity of Sandbanks.

Tailor Made Lettings are in need of similar luxury homes across the Poole area and recent rentals negotiated have been in Canford Cliffs, Westbourne, Broadstone,Westcliff, Branksome Park, Lower Parkstone all with rents in excess of 2500 per month

Landlords please contact our Poole town office for a rental brochure. The rental market has been very busy in the last 6 months so busy that we have a shortage of property to market. Rents have increase but so has demand Jamie Rolls of Tailor Made quotes

its not uncommon for City people searching for the right property to rent for more than £5000 per month

. Lack of rental property has come about as Landlords cash in on the recent sales boom and buyers have mainly bought to occupy. The selling boom has removed a lot of rented homes from the market and as a result those Landlords that have remained are seeing improved returns. Tailor Made Lettings offer a rental analysis report where owners supply us with the address of the property and brief description. Tailor Made can then provide a report showing rentals over last 12 months in your street adjoining streets or a postcode area . For more info Contact Jamie Rolls 01202 673454 or email jamie@tailormadelettings.co.uk

www.tailormadelettings.co.uk

Poole rental agent specialists Tailor Made lettings maintain office dedicated to rental & management

Dedicated only to the rental market Our Poole Town centre office has been a dedicated rental agency from the day it opened in 1992.

Only once did I attempt to bring in a sales department. It was when my wife decided she would like to return to work. The truth was that adding several selling staff into the mix proved counter productive to my Letting business.

My rentals team are proficient and trained to be accurate administrators. Duties include important logging diarising all manner of events,regulations,important anniversaries,rent due,renewals,gas safetychecks,electricity inspections,new tenancies,expiring tenancies, maintenance,rent increases,inspections,checkouts,checkins,inventories and so much more.

Sales staff I soon found had an aversion to admin and seemed to chat most of the day. They discuss their sales,their strategies and bounce ideas around all day long about getting an instruction or promoting a property or controlling a client, they were mainly working loudly together as a team.The sales people jotted the odd notes down and had very good memory for pursuing finite issues that may or maynot caused sales to falter every aspect shouted across the office for all to hear.

All very well but having two teams in one office was causing my lettings team problems.The answer was tricky as after 12 months I had to tell my wife she had to find alternative premises to work from.

Fortunately for Tailor Made we discovered the Sandbanks Peninsula office and opened up a dedicated sales office in 2001 from where staff referred rental inquiries back to Poole Town centre branch.

Since then our interest in sales at Sandbanks has been sold, yet remains in my wifes family.

With new regulations governing every aspect of renting a property, operating a proper management system is key to dealing with larger volume. Lets face it you would not want your property to be the one that slipped through the net for something important such as building insurance,gas safety,electrical testing or tenancy renewal or notice to quit.

For the last 15 years we have used Gemini (started out as protrack) a property management package that covers every aspect of looking after property.The system is wonderful and speeds up all our processes freeing our time to promote and market empty property.

However we have grown with the system and staff are trained to use it. For instance a new member of accounts it takes approximately 6 months of working supervised to become proficient. The entire team pump in their info and record data on a daily basis. The entire history of your property under management is recorded and important events pop up out of the system at the right time and dates.

Property Management has become more complex and the need now is for specialised staff to perform specific jobs. I have been in the business since 1979 and know that to simply wake up one morning and decide to switch from Estate agency sales to rentals or do both is not conducive to good practice.

When faced with dropping everything and doing a viewing your Estate Agent sales negotiator will be up and gone as this is the reason he took the job to sell and earn large commissions, the fact that he has taken 10 repair calls,a checkout has been delayed, a tenant is locked out of the house and there are nine renewals to be done that afternoon may see the negotiator fade out of sight.

My trained staff attend regular training days and our own in-house training stems from adopted practices and techniques learned from an office with 20 years history as a dedicated rental agency using an expensive software system to make sure things are not missed and all reports are logged. Even for a dripping tap we now click on "choose the property", click choose the contractor, enter an instruction and click to send it to contractor and owner by email.

The job will be shown outstanding until a bill has been received and will disappear off the to-do screen once the bill has been paid. The Tailor Made office in Spain provides Estate Agency sales and although we offer rentals we do so on a Tenant finding service only . No management so essentially Spain is a sales office for the reasons contained above.

Landlords get it right !

To work or to Battle In summer of 1979 my mother pushed a copy of the Bournemouth echo job page under my nose telling me you have had your summer now get a job. Circled on the page an office junior job at a local estate agency. I made the call and was given an interview. On arrival at my new job there was no plush office. A ply wood screen with 10,000 pin holes, patrolled by ants and loaded with faded curling card offering shops offices and rental homes. A herringbone wooden floor and desks from the 1950s. A boss worth millions who owned 20% of property in the area and managed another 20% for old school mates. We serviced Landlords who had handed property to tenants new in the late 1940s & 50s but who had never spent a penny on the homes since. By the late 1970s the original protected tenants on regulated rents were vacating or dying. The properties were grim rotted flooring, nail sick roofs led pipes china sinks and cast iron hot water tanks. As the properties came vacant most were re-let. I organised repairs to nail sick roofs,rotted flooring,rotted windows, new kitchen sinks, gas central heating, and a lick of paint. After spending 5000.00 on a property it still looked naff but we still managed to find tenants. The result was that more often than not the properties were problematic and occupied by agrieved tenants continually complaining. I used to say that every morning I put on my tin hat ready for battle. I was rewarded with hard work, great training and the promise to myself that when I started my own business I did not want to do battle every day. Fourteen years later I was able to put that ethos into practice. No bedsits no student housing and no dilapidated homes would mean that all my energy would be concentrated on looking after nice homes and dealing with mature well mannered customers. I wanted to make work a pleasure not a chore. Find the right property choose the right occupier and if you get it right, managing the property will be smoothe and efficient. Of course many times over the years I arrived at a property that fell far below the standard required to find the type of occupier that I preferred to deal with. I was very aware that to take on a property with a load of issues was detrimental to my business so I would often quote commission rates of 17.5% way above the industry standard simply to lose the instruction. Tenant vetting was equally important and Tailor Made Lettings was the first agency in our area to provide 16 point check/48 hour referencing. Managing property is all about systems and applying risk minimization techniques that are proven to work. Experience is key and managing expectations is very important. Telling a Landlord that if he professionally cleans the carpets Tailor Made will look to ensure the tenant does the same when they vacate, follow up by a simple written pre-warning to the tenant that the owner has used a professional company to clean the carpets at a cost of two hundred pounds ready for your occupation and will expect the same courtesy when you vacate. In this instance you have managed expectations for both sides and the result will be a smoother process at the end of the tenancy with both sides aware of their responsibility. If you are about to rent your property here are some tips that are worth inquiring about before giving instruction 1. Insist on 3 references: bank, work, previous agent /landlord & a credit check. Make sure you see all three and not just the good refs. Some agents may use a referencing agency which include all these checks. Agents desperate for commission may simply want to get deal signed away and provide you with 2 good references but hold back the bad one. I get most agrieved when we turn away a tenant due to bad reference only to find they have gone to the agent down the road and been accepted. Happens all the time particularly in the multi chain agencies 2. Ask the agent to provide some comparable eveidence of rentals achieved in last 6 months for the area. Agents will quote a high rent to get the instruction then pressure you with a low rent offer because its slow to shift. An established agent will have comparable evidence to support the rental valuation and find a tenant quickly at that rent or near to it 3. Make sure you have the final say. Make it clear to the agent not to reserve your property until you have discussed and agreed the tenant is right for your property. 4. Use an agency that can provide 48 hour referencing. Longer can mean the tenant has time to see other property and your deal could fall through. Once referenced and approved by you ask the agent to set a deadline to sign the contract. Normally within 3 days of approval any longer and you need to ask why are we waiting. The worst thing you can do is wait a month until the start date to sign up then the tenant decides they do not want it. After 33 years in the business there are literally hundreds of safeguards that can be used to ensure a smoothe rental we have in place letter templates for all situations and contracts adjusted and written to cover most issues. All this with good working practice makes for happy landlords and just as important happy tenants Francis Payne