advice needed which is the best letting agent property york

[dizza2560]

Hello everyone, I am new to laymyhat, looking for advice. My parents own a 4 bed detached property in york, currently let to private tenants. I have made initial enquiries and the letting agents feel it is suitable as a holiday let. I would need an agent as I live 170 miles away. Which agents do you feel are the best for number of weeks let, cost and service? Also my husband and I are considering purchasing 2 properties there as it has good potentia forl all year around visitors. What do you consider to be the most important factors when deciding which property to purchase - is a flat better than a house if they both have 2 beds for example? Is a 3 bed better than a 2? Is location the most important thing or is a property 1 mile away from the city centre as lettable as one with just a few minutes walk? sorry so many questions, bust I am a complete newbie and would welcome any advice, many thanks.

[kendalcottages]

Just taking two of your questions:

Is a 3 bed better than a 2?

Personally, I feel that - for letting year round - a 2 bed place is a better proposition for a 3-bed place. It has the ability to appeal just to couples, to families, to two couples, to a couple and elderly parent(s), etc. etc. With 3 beds, you maybe begin to exclude the couples market a little and, for that reason, would perhaps struggle a little more to fully occupy the place out of the main holiday weeks.

Is location the most important thing or is a property 1 mile away from the city centre as lettable as one with just a few minutes walk?

They do say when buying a property, "Location, location, location". So yes... location is very important. But there are lots of factors to consider. Some people might prefer to be not too central (less noise, for instance), some suburbs might be more desirable than others, some areas might not only better from a letting point of view but might also offer better long term prospects when it comes to the value of the property in the future, some might offer better transport links, etc. etc.. In short, I don't think you can just simply say a central place is better or worse than a not-so-central place... there are lots of factors to consider.

[Nemo]

I have made initial enquiries and the letting agents feel it is suitable as a holiday let. I would need an agent as I live 170 miles away. Which agents do you feel are the best for number of weeks let, cost and service?

If you have a search through some old threads you will find lots of info regarding agencies and the pros and cons. However I just had to pick up on the fact that you equate living far away to needing an agent. Many of us live a considerable distance, if not another country, from our properties. You need to differentiate between a "booking" agent who will simply get you the bookings and a "managing" agent who would look after the property on a day to day basis including the cleaning etc. There is a big difference in the percentages they will take as well.

Personally whilst I started with both of the above, within a year I was doing it without either. I now manage all my own bookings and a very reliable cleaner sorts the on site cleaning and day to day issues.

[dizza2560]

Thankyou very much for the replies so far, this site is a godsend! The main reason I am looking for an agent is twofold, firstly I am not really computer literate and would not know how to start marketing myself, the second is time, 3 children and parents with dementia to care for, so I am effectively already running 2 households. I have spoken to cottages4u and sykes, they seem to be the 2 which come up at the top of the search engine. Any thoughts on flat versus house?, my husband and I disagree on this, I prefer a house mainly because of outside space especially if you have children, personally I have never booked a flat for this reason. Also an extra question, how important is the external kerb appeal of a property?, there is a large choice of properties to go for, but some although great on the inside perhaps do not look that appealing externally.Is a terraced property likely to let? Thanks again in anticipation, I need all the advice I can get!

[Val]

I can only say from my own experience that Sykes have been very good. They offer an efficient service and are a bit cheaper than English Country Cottages - 20% as opposed to 23%.
We started out in March this year and have been 80% booked since then. We've renewed with them for another year.
Initially I thought we might just use an agency the first year then 'go it alone', but frankly we've been that pleased with the number of bookings we've decided to stick with them.
Basically you pays your money and takes your choice. We do the changeovers and that's it- three hours work between us once a week. They do the rest.

[starcana]

I've had really good experience with Enlgish County Cottages - the rep/regional manager, does very little but their marketing is so good that we hit around 88% occupancy for the past three years. We also get 'very nice' guests, who leave the place well - maybe that's because it's couple only?

[Val]

Yes, the guests have been 'nice' people- this has been our experience aswell. They have all left the place really clean and tidy- so far!
We too considered English Country Cottages at the outset, but despite registering our interest in having them come round and assess us, we never heard from them . I actually phoned them up to chase it and was told that the Regional Manager would be in touch, but we never heard anything from her.
Our guests tend to be either middle aged couples or families with 2 or three youngish children. We seem to appeal to a cycling/birdwatching/Ramblers/National Trust type of demographic.

[charles cawley]

Sykes tends to be less expensive and more flexible than Hoseasons (many brands including English Country Cottages).

The latter can spring surprises. If you want to leave the terms are often well worth checking. The commission charged by most Hoseasons companies is substantial, there are often extra charges and if any agency suggests exclusive rights it is worth asking why they feel so inadequate to request this.

Legacy agencies are beginning to feel the heat of competition from non exclusive far less expensive agencies and have already suffered from some of the better listing sites.

We set up because many people in our area wanted better terms and refused to accept exclusive agency agreements at prices like 26% plus vat commission plus extra charges.

I very strongly advise that Sykes is a better deal... if you push them you might get non-exclusivity. I would never use Hoseasons or any of their brand name operations... it is huge, can be expensive and once signed up it can take a long time to part the ways. Some Legacy agencies do have an early release fee.. but this is often several hundred pounds.

Do not be impressed with the 'We spend £millions in internet advertising' routine. Modern internet advertising can be focused to particular areas and people are now well up on searching in a focused way. We spend about £2000 pcm for our area... small and focused can be just as effective, we feel even more effective, than huge, grand, and very much not local. Bigger is not better however much they will try to say it is.

The rate we are expanding in our area, (not yours so there is no conflict of interest here), speaks volumes to the attractiveness of Legacy agency alternatives. We actively encourage owners to do their own thing and work with them, rather than expect them to depend entirely on us. This is a much better way of doing things.

Any Legacy agency which suggests that you will ever have to pay a percentage of any lettings you get yourself should be avoided. (I think Sykes is quite sensible here where many Legacy agencies are not). Such behaviour belongs to the past.

As there is no conflict of interest this might be useful to help you start in holiday letting: countryholidaylets.co.uk/landlords-homeowners-info-pack.htm

[kendalcottages]

Sykes tends to be less expensive and more flexible than Hoseasons (many brands including English Country Cottages).

I had one of their subsidiaries round to look at our place just before we started to let out. In their defence, the accommodation was a shell - nicely decorated, etc. but far from finished, with furniture, etc. still to go in.

I was asked what I thought our peak season rate would be and I said around £750-£790. The lady thought £600 was more appropriate.

I didn't take her advice, went it alone and priced the peak weeks at £790. They all booked bar the last week in August which can be a tricky one sometimes. That was last season and we'd opened just in time for Easter. This year they all booked at £850.

I suppose the moral of the story is that agents (Charles excepted of course ) don't necessarily know your property and market as well as you might think... so be prepared to question what they tell you.

[charles cawley]

Thank you for your kind words Kendal Cottages.

We never forget we are middlemen and that, essentially, we skim money off others efforts... 'though we do our best to offer value.

Our approach is to agree rates mutually with owners because (surprise) they do tend to know what they are talking about. If they are new to the market we suggest rates and after a bit of discussion we settle on a target rate.

Then we suggest they go in low and ratchet up the rate towards the target to optimise income against costs. This way, we avoid a huge amount of guesswork, taking stabs at getting the rate right, and the cost is far lower than going in too high and suffering many lost bookings.

The cost of going in 10% too low for, say, 6 months with 20 bookings at, say £350 would be £650. The cost of 5 lost bookings by going in too high would be £1750. This method of 'feeling the market' has a lot to be said for it and is a long way from the banding systems used by many agencies which try to make the market fit their systems.

[dizza2560]

Many thanks for the replies, especially Charles, I wish I was buying in your area! This site has been amazing, so many things to consider, great to get honest opinions from people already letting. I was thinking of Sykes, but I am looking for a 3 day break myself to make decisions on the final shortlist and am concerned about their wide search area, not much in York. Cottages4u seem good from a punters point of view, anyone using them? thanks again.

[starcana]

Cottages4you are the same group as English Country Cottages. If you go with one you get publicised through the other and about half a dozen other companies (or more). When we google the name of our property 15 pages of google come up with it advertised under all the different names they trade under, including Hoseasons,since ECC took them over. Choose any cottage name you like from one site, then google it and you'll see what I mean.

[Naomi]

I use Sykes and they are very good indeed. Prompt service, great staff etc. This year, I have been fully booked and all of my guests have been pleased with them.

I would highly recommend them.

Already two of my friends have also signed up with them and found good service too.

By the way, their fee is 20% plus VAT and so that equates to 24% of your turnover.

I am not connected to them in any way other than being one of the houses on their books.

[charles cawley]

Show interest and Sykes will be there, nearly always as quick as a flash. If you dither, they will ring and e-mail you, they are hungry for your business.

Show interest in going with Hoseasons and compare the enthusiasm. Hoseasons is, in turn, owned by Wyndham Worldwide, an American company.

Thanks for the rate info about Sykes... for what they offer I would choose them. Bigger is not better and people are becoming far more competent and focused using search engines. The number of mentions through different brand names no longer offers the huge net it once did.

If you put in a cottage name it may appear under ten or more brand names but people do not search by cottage names and once they know the name of your cottage, they will either book or go elsewhere. The real test is if, say, your cottage is in Eardisland, whether the Hoseasons brand listing for your cottage appears when someone searches using the words 'Eardisland cottage'. It is even more unlikely to appear if someone searches using the words 'Hereford Cottage' which is by far the most common positive key phrase used by people visiting our web site.

Contrary to what the SEO people say, organic search results are not the key; for agencies adwords and listing sites are still their major source of bookings. The SEO people are motivated to rubbish paid internet advertising because they nearly always hold out the false promise of free marketing with organic search results... but you do have to pay them a bit to get there... so it's not really 'free'. In addition, it is often very poor value. In some cases their claims verge on the fraduluent (remember Y2K?) and, if based abroad as many are, you have no chance of remedy.

How people use search engines is key. Bigger is not better... tons of brands is not better; indeed, Google does not take kindly to 'content stuffing', so we must assume that this hurdle must have been successfully cleared by multi-brand operations presenting the same cottage time and time again.

Sykes does not multi-brand. We only have one other web site pointed to ours which is countryholidaylets.com and have no plans to ever go further. Google is getting too sophisticated to risk upsetting; if you take a step too far, as J C Penney discovered, you can pay a very high price:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17825/jc ... pen_to_you

It will be a constant and significant work of care for all multi-brand operations to make sure they do not upset Google. So far they are doing well.. but we do not have the resources and do not want to take the risk.

Energy and a hunger to be of service could be hints of a better choice. Price is also worth considering, along with non-exclusivity and contract break terms.

[starcana]

okay, okay, Charles - you've made you're point. All I've said is I'm very happy with English Country Cottages and hold no other remit for them. You can only speak as you fnd from experience.