Has anyone know if Openrent provide a Full Management Service? ie: manage my 1 bedroom flat in SE14 6TA available from 15th Sept 2019 for 1 year possibly longer while I’m away overseas in Australia.
Can anyone share any good or bad experience they have had with Full Management Service for rental property
Or does anyone have any recommendations of any other Full Management Services they have used for long term rental. Any thoughts ideas would be much appreciated.
Hi Urmita, we don’t currently offer what a high street agent would call a full management service.
Would be interested to hear how other Community users respond to your questions here.
But I would also say that it makes sense to ask yourself what you actually want from this. A managing agent may take around 10% of your rent. So what are you getting back from it? Make sure you are getting real value and not just a list of services that sounds impressive when listed together, but when you drill down, turn out to be a bad deal.
For example, managing agents say they will sort out repairs, etc. but it’s not like the cost for a plumber is included in your 10% fee. You have to pay the repair costs on top of this, and you have no real way of knowing if they chose the best value workpeople to do the job.
They might include rent collection in their list of services, but this is something we provide for free via Rent Now anyway.
They will also want to manage the tenant relationship, but they aren’t living in the property. They might not report all the issues the tenant actually reports about the property while you are on the other side of the planet.
Using OpenRent is perfectly compatible with using a managing agent however, so there will be no problems on our end.
Thankyou for your thoughts in terms of value for money. Feel I really don’t have an option.
Although as you suggested using openrent management service might work …my problem would arise when tenants report an issue
Unfortunately as I wouldn’t be able to arrange for any tradesman or day to day issues to take a look from Australia?? How would that work??
Thanks Urmita
What Sam has to say is very relevant - do you get value for money from a managing agent? In my experience, definitely NOT. You can manage this yourself from the other side of the world - if you want to. However, you will need to equip yourself with a list of trusted tradespeople who can fix things when something needs fixing. Everything can be done by email these days - or WhatsApp to talk mobile to mobile from anywhere in the world. We managed a property in Gibraltar from the UK - generally speaking successfully. Do you have friends who could do 3-monthly inspections to ensure the property is being looked after? That is the one thing you cannot do from a distance.
Otherwise, try Arula - they deal with landlords who are all over the world. https://portal.arula.co.uk/
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that is a good idea to keep a list of nearby tradespeople . I thought agents charged 15%? I renovated a whole house for a customer who lived in Japan. His mum and dad came around to check up and pay me. We talked by e. mail It worked fine
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Thankyou Anne some interesting points to consider. Unfortunately I don’t have family & friends in the UK to manage or look in on the property.
Have you personally used Arula?
I use Arula all the time - it is (in my view) a wonderful resource for getting yourself organised - and I love to be organised! They do have a management arm for landlords (who are mainly overseas). However, I do not have personal experience of that part of their business. I can vouch for the owner of the website though. He’s a retired Royal Naval officer and is very passionate about providing a good service. Hope this helps a bit!
hello I know of a company that manages properties
benefits of working with them
-landlords benefit from section 24 (tax write off)
- guaranteed rent ( no void periods )
-lower wear and tear
-minor maintenance covered
-pet free and smoke free
-easier reposition
-long term contracts