ARPM Property Management: Helping Lettings Departments across the UK

ARPM Property Management:  Helping Lettings Departments across the UK

ARPM Property Management actively seeks to support and encourage new start lettings departments, or stand-alone businesses, to reach their desired goals.  Dave Hunt, Business Development Director of ARPM, one of the UK’s largest outsourced lettings providers, explains how:

“Last week I was really interested to read an article warning landlords not to use ‘estate agents’ to market and manage their rental properties.  I suspect the article would have been written by a letting agent who had simply become fed-up with losing instructions to estate agents within their local area, who have opened a newly formed lettings department.

On the whole, I agreed with the majority of statements written in the article and ARPM Property Management certainly doesn’t condone traditional estate agents opening up lettings departments to supplement their monthly income whilst the sales market remains stagnate, IF they have no experience and knowledge to undertake the same.  Dabbling in the lettings industry without the required skills is not for the faint-hearted as so much can and inevitably will go wrong! 

Estate agents, however, have a right like any other industry to evolve and develop their offering to meet with customer demand.  ARPM Property Management actively seeks to work in partnership with lettings businesses to help them develop into multi-practice agencies that they desire to be by offering them the opportunity to outsource ALL back-office functions to our experienced team – and best of all the service can be white-labelled so that to the outside world there is no indication that a different company is being used to perform these tasks.  Back-office functions include:

·         Referencing

·         Producing tenancy agreements and dealing with renewals

·         Rent collection and arrears

·         Property Management

The majority of letting agents have been outsourcing their Inventories for years and no one bats an eyelid, so why should there be a problem with a lettings practice choosing to outsource their back-office functions?  Some may argue that by outsourcing the landlord suffers as he has to pay more for the service but with ARPM Property Management working in partnership with the agent, this simply isn’t true, as we work hard to ensure that our fees and charges will work within the local market conditions. 

Estate agents have all the skill set required to complete the front office functions of attending market appraisals and undertaking viewings.  Yes, they may need to hone their skills to tailor viewings towards how tenants view potential properties (which is slightly different to potential purchasers) and likewise, those staff undertaking market appraisals will need at least a basic knowledge of lettings law; ARPM Property Management provides ‘New To Lettings’ packs to provide some of this basic knowledge and likewise will always be happy to point ‘new start’ lettings offices in the direction of a leading Industry Trainer, should this be a requirement”.

If you would like to find out how your business can benefit from partnering with ARPM, contact them today for a without obligation consultation.  Tel: 01923 775705 or email info@arpm.co.uk