Martin & Co has agreed a deal with a niche property portal that lists properties across the country where tenants on Local Housing Allowance will be accepted.
Martin & Co will feed Dssmove.co.uk property listings from the majority of their branches.
Aki Ellahi, director of Dssmove.co.uk, said: “We are delighted to be working with such a great brand in the lettings.
“The team at Martin & Co have been very supportive and it has been an easy process to set up the live feed to our website.
“We hope to generate high-quality leads for the group over the coming months by giving the stock as much coverage as possible.
“The site has gone from strength to strength over the last few months and the traffic continues to increase month on month.
“Our success is down to the fact that we offer a niche service which is not offered by the big property portals.”
Martin Henwood, head of digital at Martin & Co, said: “Dssmove.co.uk has plugged a gap in the market and we have been very impressed with what they have achieved since their launch last year.
“A number of our branches work with landlords who are happy to take on DSS tenants and many of our offices which have a high concentration of DSS tenants have welcomed this new partnership.”
Comments
Robert, you are missing my point. The ‘bonkers’ comment is about brand management and embedded value. Most agents will have property stock that is appropriate for housing benefit tenants and manage this along with the majority of stock this is not appropriate. The last thing any agents wants is an influx of tenant applicants on benefits and the last think M&Co need is to become the agent of choice for tenants on benefits. In this market, with very strong tenant demand from families and professionals, agents and landlords can be selective and take the actions to optimise yields. M&Co already has brand issues, their best franchisees will be cheesed off with this move.
A wonderful array of informed comments on here;
"Bonkers! not a smart move ahead of listing" with best part of £100,000,000 available annually to agents who embrace LHA tenants it IS one of the smartest things they could have announced ahead of a floatation. Offering investors the potential of massive growth is just what investors want to consider.
"it cheapens an already lowish end brand and I cant see the franchisees thanking the top brass" If you have been reading LAT for the past year you might recall some very sizeable investors moving into social housing, what should any agent do if a regular client suddenly announces they have 500 LHA tenancies for management? I can think of one very high end agent who has that dilemma, however the £420,000 fee makes it a little less painful.
Well, all news is good news.
There is NOTHING wrong with social housing and benefit tenants - in fact they often look after properties better than rich city boys. Nevertheless, it cheapens an already lowish end brand and I cant see the franchisees thanking the top brass. I can see every single agent who doesn't accept HB tenants pointing the to MAC which will stigmatise them and put landlords off using them.
"Yes, Mr. Landlord, we attract good quality tenants and advertise on lots of quality websites including DSSMove"... i can see that going down really well ! I hope they splash it all over their website :)
DSSMove?
If I recall correctly, the Department of Social Security ceased to exist as a government department well over a decade ago.
Maybe the site owners might like to consider renaming the website to HBMove, or if IDS eventually manages to get his new system in place that actually works, UCMove!
Just to give this report a bit of balance, not all Martin & Co offices have "a high concentration of DSS tenants".
Some of us were quite surprised by this development.
In fact it wouldn't be totally beyond the bounds of possibility that one or two MAC offices might share some common ground with the unnamed person below who described it as "Bonkers"
Bonkers! not a smart move ahead of listing.
Boost that brand!