Regional Round-up

July 2018

Over the past few months there has been a significant decrease in the number of two- to three-bedroom family homes available to rent. With the continuous increase in regulation and compliance, landlords are more and more conscious of the return on their investment.

With a noticeable increase of online agents’ boards popping up in our region and their expansion into management, landlords are questioning the value of instructing a local agent, as opposed to the limited service given by online agents, such as Tepilo and Purplebricks. It would be a natural assumption to think that we are becoming more and more detached from today’s tenants.

However, there is still an amount of personal involvement that occurs daily.

This might be a family bereavement, a parent with dementia who moves in or information on a family pet. You are flooded with information from break ups to neighbourly disputes. Tenants rarely hold back and it doesn’t always work in their favour.

Recently, a landlord declined a potential tenant with an otherwise impeccable application, due to the unprotected personal information displayed on a Facebook page that was readily available.

Throughout a tenancy it’s not uncommon to become familiar with an individual or family and, in some cases, tenants treat us more like councillors than letting agents… a role that we don’t always want!

However, it’s clear in many cases that without this personal rapport and direct contact with the agent, tenants could have ended up in situations which directly impact not only their wellbeing and social situation, but also impact our client, the landlord.

Whether Cornwall catching up with other regions is seen as negative by our members, it is a new concept which is gripping the country and one for which both small independents and nationals need to up the ante, to continue to give good service to our clients. This begs the question, is Cornwall ready to give up its personal connections with tenants? And are landlords ready to take the risk of not having agents advise them and ensure that they do not fall foul of regulations and protect their investment?

Linda Spelman MARLA FNAEA MARLA (Inv)
ARLA Propertymark Regional Representative
lindaspelman@arla-reps.co.uk