By Steve Roulstone
In June last year, I posted a blog entitled ‘The truth behind the Rental Myth’ and as part of a new section in the Castle Estates blog and because we have now been posting for well over a year, I have chosen this as the first in a new section where I will review what was originally written and comment on where matters have developed since the initial posting.
Initial intent.
I wrote this because despite ten years in the industry, I had recently been asked about the old chestnut of how did I cope with Tenants trashing property, when in fact it hardly ever happened and was in any case on the decline, so I wanted to say exactly what it said on the tin! Interestingly, whilst that is still the case and with regular property visits we have a method designed to give us an early warning system anyway, it was the rest of my comments that have been the reason for me choosing this Blog as a target for an update.
Renting on the increase.
My prediction that renting would become more popular and that what Tenants were doing was following a trend because of how our market suited a lifestyle was, as we can now see, exactly what has happened and only recently, I have commented again on how this lifestyle choice is what commentators are failing to observe when looking at market trends and commenting on them.
Legal options on the decrease.
What I did not foresee at that time, was that the Government, which of course had just changed, would decide to drop the recommendations of the Rugg review and fail to bring in the long trumpeted and as readers of this blog will already know, what I believe is needed for our industry, legislation to introduce Agent and Landlord registration. This remains an issue for me and at a time when our market is growing at a pace never seen before, it does not marry that any new start Letting Agent will be struggling to get in front of the Landlords needed to grow the fledgling business.
Every Agent in town.
This is simply because the Estate Agents of this country turned to what it has perceived as its poorer sibling for so many years, to rescue its own business when the house sales market collapsed. Please do not misread what I say here, because there are plenty of very good Estate Agents that have turned to the Lettings market to survive, but I am equally sure that we will see and hear about (my bet is they will not differentiate between Estate Agents and letting Agents when reported!) stories of bad management as time progresses and problems do appear.
Here is an irony!
The irony may well be that what is reported is property that has been trashed and my initial point will have travelled full circle! Because there is no doubt that bad management is one reason why houses do end up getting damaged. The why is a different story and not for this short article, but what I would hate to see, is our industry suffer (by way of reputation) because of Estate Agents who have jumping the fence purely out of necessity, ending up being the root cause of bad press for the Lettings industry and by association, Letting Agents as a group!
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