Info you may not know about Tailor Made

The long established Letting Agent for Poole Dorset Tailor Made Lettings maintains a choice of furnished and unfurnished property in the Poole area. Our rentals are mainly between Lytchett Mattravers (west of Poole) and as far as Westbourne & the Westcliff (east of Poole). Our main office established in 1992 is in Poole town centre on the Barclays International roundabout across the way from the Dolphin shopping centre. Tailor Made Lettings has a presence in the Tailor Made estate agents sales office on the Sandbanks peninsula. The rental & sales agencies are seperately owned but work together to promote the successful Tailor Made brand. Tailor Made Letting provide a range of rental services that include Full Management and for those who prefer to manage themselves we can provide a Tenant intro only service. Tailor Made Lettings do not take on bedsit property or student accommodation. We prefer to concentrate on the corporate market finding working people to occupy well maintained homes. Tailor Made Lettings are a dedicated letting agency and one of the few agents who do not award repair contracts and take a cut from the contractor. In fact we prefer to ask the Landlords to pass us contact details of their own plumbers electricians and repair men. After all if the Landlord has used them in the past they will know the property and save time and money. We do expect contractors proposed by a landlord to have 3rd party liability insurance. Whilst we are known for renting out luxury multi million pound homes the fact is that the 1 & 2 bedroom apartment market particularly around Poole town, Parkstone, Lower Parkstone, Hamworthy, Creekmoor, Westbourne, Oakdale etc is our bread and butter market. We are very pleased to have a very high profile in the area and this enables us to continually maintain a good register of prospective tenants. The results is that we often find Tenants faster than many of the smaller local agents. Time is money and once we have a keen taker for the property we put in place a 48 hour referencing & credit checking service. Jamie Rolls runs the Poole town centre office. Jamie born & bred in Poole is a keen golfer and member of Parkstone Golf club and is a committee member of his much loved East Dorset Croquet & Tennis club where years ago he played county junior tennis but now plays cat A doubles tennis for the club.

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

Beware! Good Agent Bad Agent

BEWARE BAD RENTAL AGENT: Choose the right agent In property Lettings Specialising is King How many of us ask the right questions when choosing an Agent The world economic crisis resulted in a strong rental market as ability to buy is diminished with of finance. The result has been many new letting agencies opening and many Estate Agents who never offered rentals or property management turning a hand into the letting market. A Question I get asked often "what makes a good letting agent" When Tailor Made Lettings first opened the Poole Town centre office in 1992 it was as a dedicated rental office. At that time I had worked in property management for 15 years during a time where the wrong word on the receipt of a prospective occupier could result in your property value halving overnight. In the 1970s and 1980s caution was key slip up in law. These days it has been simplified but the duty of care is still paramount and as in every industry specialising is king. During the late 1990s my wife wanted to return to work and came up with the idea of opening an estate agent. I had lots of room in the Rental office and so suggested that she may like to use a couple of desks and part of the window space to sell property. Within a month with 2 new staff the Sales venture opened. What became apparent very quickly is how different sales staff are in comparison to trained rental staff. The property management team were entering finite information and figures requiring a degree of concentration, suddenly we had some chatty sales staff talking over our heads about deals and applicants constantly thinking out loud. The disruption continued for several months and in the end I told my wife to find her own premises. Within 6 months she had vacated and moved to Sandbanks. The office returned to normality with my team concentrating on the task of managing the issues that arise when renting property. The team of 6 comprised as follows: 1. Owner manager 2. Financial controller 3. Lettings negotiator 4. Property inspector_ problem solver 5. Compliance Administrator 6. Receptionist - Administrator All have been through various levels of training and qualifications. All have been kept up-to-date with the latest changes in Law and compliance. So tell me how many Selling Agents that converted to rentals provide this kind of staffing and where did the training come from. An established letting agent has been through the mill and back many times. Along the way the agency has made errors paid for them and rectified the systems to avoid them in the future. This build up of experience is very important. Too often over the years I have heard agents at conferences or seminars at the bar making silly comments "I don’t take any nonsense from my tenants I really tell them where to get off if they dare question me" Hello Mr Agent! This is no longer a feudal system the likelihood is that your tenant is more qualified than you and earns 5 times your wages. No doubt this is an agent who alienates tenants and as a result looses respect and good communication. Most of the time the ones making the comments turn out to be inexperienced or migrating from sales to dabbling in lettings as well. So a Letting Agent - Property manager is a specialist that you as a client employ to find a tenant and minimize risk. My approach has always been nice people in nice property makes my life as an agent easier and I do prefer a hassle free work environment as opposed to Get them in at whatever cost because we need the commission . This attitude by agents results in problems. It’s frustrating when we refuse a rental tenant due to poor references then they go to the agent along the Road and are accepted immediately. You have to ask yourself did they reference and if they did what did they actually produce to the owner. Over the years as an agency we have turned down offers to manage bedsitters, houses in multiple occupation and student accommodations. Why? Because these types of properties are problematic and managing them will result in a lot of time being spent resolving issues taking staff away from their day to day management tasks. There may well be some good estate agents who double up as letting agents but finding the good tenant may only be half the necessary qualification. The real Letting Agent Property Manager has the knowledge and expertise as to how to deal with things when a good tenant goes bad. Francis Payne

Poole rental agent

The rental agent in Poole Town centre committed to the rental market

Tailor Made Lettings is proud that it has remained committed to the rental market and next month will be our 18th year for the Poole town centre office on the Barclays international Round-about at High Street North.

Whilst many of our competitors start off as selling agents who incorporate rentals as a sideline the Tailor Made office located at the end of Longfleet Road Poole has never sold property.

Jamie Rolls managing partner states “our business at Poole town centre is about risk minimization and for this reason each member of staff needs to be trained to specialise in rentals & management” The firm points out that their systems and techniques in minimizing risk has developed over many years resulting in virtually a trouble free management programme. Francis Payne senior partner confirms “ If you permit a troublesome problematic tenant into a property you will end up spending most of your time dealing with problems and too many agents who are inexperienced or simply greedy for commission permit the wrong people to occupy creating a headache for everyone involved. With experience, the correct vetting and the right approach problems are avoidable” Whilst the Tailor Made brand name has become synonymous with high end luxury homes the firm is quick to point out that the Poole office applies the same standards of care and risk minimization to all property be it a 1 bedroom town centre apartment or a 6 bedroom waterside mansion the systems are the same for all and are tried and tested. In 18 years Tailor Made Lettings are probably now one of the largest local letting agents and if you are thinking of renting a property the likelihood is that they will have a number of comparables in your area of Poole to support achieving the maximum rent possible without the property remaining empty for too long.