Handling rental enquiries on behalf of others

[kendalcottages]

I've been approached by three different people in the last few months about renting out properties on their behalf - one only about 15 miles away, one in Cornwall and one in Normandy.

I'm not really interested in getting involved with the cleaning and day-to-day running of each, but would consider handling all aspects of the marketing on their behalf, from designing a website to placing ads, looking after Facebook/Twitter, and handling all enquiries/bookings.

Does anyone else already do this? Can you give an indication of the 'going rate'...? Presumably this would be a % of the rental income?

All advice and comments welcome. Thanks.

[KathyG]

I'd ask for 20% just to handle the enquiries/bookings Paul, let alone all the rest of it. That's a fair bit of your time you're going to be taking up.

[Margaret]

We used to do this. In our experience it is only worthwhile if the properties are large enough to yield a reasonable amount as a percentage. We were letting studio apartments and it is just as much work to let those as a 4 bedroom house but much less in money terms.

[la vache!]

I'd ask for 20% just to handle the enquiries/bookings Paul, let alone all the rest of it. That's a fair bit of your time you're going to be taking up.

That's what I charge for a house locally for doing the advertising and taking the bookings.....and property management, washing and ironing, meet and greet! It seems quite high to me. But then you need to make it worth your while and if you don't ask, you don't get!

[apexblue]

We do bookings for 5 others and charge 15%. Any management problems we are first port of call and then relay onto owners.

[paolo]

At 10% you will get clients, but if they already advertise themselves the 10% will be on top of their rates. In theory they shouldn't care what commission you add on, as long as they get the market rate, but of course the higher it is the harder it will be for you to achieve bookings. If I were starting out I would say an agency will charge 25%, so for half the work they do, but done better, I will charge 12.5%.

Resist the temptation to do anything on the rental management side, even being first point of contact. Owners should have their own caretaker or contact person. Don't be tempted to make the odd exception. That is a can of worms that doesn't need opening.

At 20 houses you will find it is a lot of repetitive work every day. At 30 houses you will feel depressed and wish you were doing something else.

It would be better to have all the properties in the same part of the world, this allows you to recycle enquiries and to have your own focused site which can be well ranked for local terms and beat the listing sites. Eventually you woudn't need to use listing sites. If I were you I would aim at folks in the Lake District who are no good at t'internet. You need a few clients and word of mouth should bring in the rest (if you get the results).

Property size: smaller properties will tend to have longer booking seasons than larger ones, and therefore the potential income for you may not differ that much, however there is as much work involved in a booking for a 1-bed flat as there is for a 6-bedroom mansion.

[vrooje]

I think something around the 15% mark is reasonable given the limitations you've set. And if you also build a full website and go all-in on the social media interaction, I'd say it's a bargain.

[kendalcottages]

Thank you for all the responses so far - much appreciated, and very useful.

I am certain that I don't want to get into management in any way - purely marketing / taking bookings.

I'd also want to be clear on it being separate from my existing venture... for example, by having a completely standalone site. My thinking here is that, if the management side of things is not up to scratch, I don't want it to tarnish the business where I do look after the management.

As for dealing only with properties in my local area, I haven't really given that much thought yet, but I'll mull it over during the next few days.

Thanks again, everyone.