Update from Michael Day - Keep positive, stay strong and stay safe

 

The “freezing” of the property market in terms of setting up transactions and seeing them through at the moment is obviously of huge consequence to everyone involved.

In reality this was happening anyway during this crisis  in a piecemeal fashion and there is at least now some further opportunity to talk with customers and clients on an individual basis and try to put things on “ice” on the basis that things can progress when a “thaw” occurs. Everyone is pretty much in the same boat and so levels of pragmatism will, I am sure, come to the fore and, using your knowledge and skill, you will be able to reassure people that there is a way forward, albeit that timings may be unknown.

Of course, none of us are naïve enough not to know that this will not work in every situation and some people will just give up on the current plans but if one can, at least hold onto, hopefully, a decent proportion of pipelines and instructions, there is a better chance of not having to “start again from scratch” when restrictions are lifted and some recovery occurs.

In my opinion, Property Management will become even more valued by clients during this time and how agents help manage difficult situations such as tenants not paying rent, resolving maintenance issues etc, mitigating landlord risks etc will place good agents in a better position as things move forward in the future.

Many of you will know that I am also a director at teclet - an innovative cloud based platform that enables lettings, renewals and property management to be largely automated and, in these days of remote working, for everything to be available online. The platform gives access to all parties (landlords, tenants, guarantors, agents) to interact and upload documents etc and has many API links to partner suppliers to facilitate both the automation but also reduce the need for several logins.

teclet can have you up and running within 48 hours and we have extended our free trial period to five months. You can theerfore be using the system and helping your business, clients and customers, almost immediately and, if you love it, you continue after the trail period, if you don't you can cancel without penalty. 

At this difficult time, communication is key, it is no good pretending that it is “business as usual” as it is clearly anything but. However, this period of “hibernation” does enable plans to be drawn up and actioned to both mitigate the immediate situation and look at lining up a better recovery when it comes.

It is a fact that more businesses get into trouble on upturns than downturns due to being caught out, tired and lacking focus so use the current time wisely – I’m here to talk to if you’d like my input – I appreciate we are all in “survival mode” but it is also important to plan ahead to ensure that one is fleet footed enough to take advantage of opportunities and not get caught out by a predictable (albeit timing unknown) improvement as much as everyone was by the emergence of this unpredictable situation.

Keep positive, stay strong and stay safe.

Michael S Day MBA FRICS FNAEA FARLA
Manging Director