Here’s A FREE Marketing Website Every Landlord Should Use To Find Tenants
Written by The Landlord on 05 Jul 2010Chaps, good news, I’ve come across a cool new marketing service that is 100% FREE for landlords. But that’s not the best part; from the money we save, we can buy an extra bucket of chronic and blaze. Win/win situation, right?
The negative (if you can call it that) about this service is that it may irritate a lot of the other tenant-finding companies that currently offer the same service for a fee! This is the FIRST time i’ve seen any company do the following for free:
- Advertise for tenants on the following websites: Rightmove, Findaproperty, Prime Location, Globrix, Zoopla, Propertyfinder, Hot property, Think property, Yahoo, MSN, Tiscali, UpMyStreet, Virgin, The Guardian
- Arrange viewings
- Negotiate offers
- Provide FREE comprehensive Tenant Reference Check
Who, where, when, you say? Makeurmove. Check ‘em out.
Is there a catch?
That was the first question that popped into my pessimistic mind, so I decided to fire an email to the Director of Makeurmove, Richard Francis, for a bit of interrogation. He quickly replied, and this is how it went down:
1) So, is what you’re offering exactly what it says on the packet? You will advertise on the listed portals for FREE and provide a FREE credit check service for anyone with an available property to let, no strings attached?
Yes our service is free to landlords and we include a free comprehensive tenant reference with our tenant find service. We just ask that landlords pass tenants back through our application process once we have found a tenant.
2) Do you know of any other companies offering the same services for free?
There are sites that offer free marketing but I am not aware of anyone else including marketing on all the major property websites for free.
3) Can you reassure everyone that your service and customer care is as great as the service you offer? The worry is, when a company offers such a great service for free, they tend to neglect the value in customer care.
Customer care is very important to us this includes our relationships with landlords and prospective tenants. All of the testimonials on our site are from landlords that have used our service and we would be happy to put you in touch with some of the landlords that have used our service if you need further references.
4) Why do you offer this service for free?
We offer the service free to landlords and charge tenants an application fee which includes all their referencing. This way we can compete with the traditional letting agent model and offer landlords a great service for free. Our application fee is kept competitive with other agents and we cap it at £120 + VAT for up to two tenants and all their referencing.
Ok, it’s been clarified, the service is 100% free for landlords, but there is an admin fee for tenants. But as Richard explained, that’s the standard fee most high street agents use.
However, the majority of the similar paid services (which I linked to earlier) don’t charge an admin fee to tenants, so you may want to consider that before irrationally relying on the free service alone, just because it’s free. There are a few questions you should ask yourself:
- 1) Do you think prospective tenants are more likely to enquire about a property with or without an admin fee?
- 2) Are tenants expecting to pay an admin fee? Bear in mind, only agencies can advertise on the majority of the big portals, and they typically charge an admin fee, so maybe the tenants expecting to pay the fee already.
It’s a tough choice because it really depends on the mentality of the users at the given time. A fair solution would be to use the free service by Makeurmove and use one of the paid services that don’t apply an admin fee for the tenant. But to be honest, using Makeurmove alone could be enough. I’d be tempted to try it alone.
Just a quick tip: if you decide to market your property on multiple websites that distribute to the same websites, use different pictures of your property, so users will view them as two different properties. Users maybe confused if they see the same property twice, and it could be discouraging.
I haven’t tried it yet
I’ve yet to try the service, and I probably won’t until I need to find new tenants, but that’s the first place I’ll go when I do.
If anyone tries it, please let me know how it goes.
This ain’t no promo shit
For those of you who regularly read my blog, you can vouch for me here, I’m usually a negative, grumbling lop-sided penis, correct? Correct. Point being, whenever I say something positive, it’s unconditionally genuine. I don’t promote ANY product for love nor money, EVER (and I’m a nymphomaniac).
I’ve not been asked to promote this company; I’m not making a penny from referrals, and i’ve not been treated to any high-class hookers. The only positives I’m getting while writing this blog post is personal satisfaction and an erection (because there’s currently porn playing in the background, on my 60inch Plasma).
Finding this free service has actually been a total inconvenience for many reasons. I’ve had to update a lot of my blog pages, I’ve lost potential referral earnings from other companies, and I’ve had to rewrite a chapter of the Ebook I’m in the middle of writing (It’s coming soon). What a suck-fest, innit?
My uneducated advice is simple, use the free service offered by Makeurmove and a few of the other Free portals for landlords, and you’ll have a winning campaign that won’t cost you a penny.
So, who’s going to be trying this shizzle out? Show of hands, please!
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7 Comments - join the conversation...
One way to look at the admin fee for Tenants is that it's one way to separate the wheat from the chaffe, the professional couples from the chavs, the decent tenants from the cu... you get my point.
2
Gay porn. Want me to send you a copy as usual? Same address?
@Gillsman
Yeah, that's a good way to look for it. If a tenant is willing to pay the fee, you know they're a serious customer!
3
Will have to go out and buy extra kleenex and Q tips..............
TB
4
Rentdirectuk.co.uk is a new innovative service providing property owners/mangers access to a UK nationwide data base of prospective tenants. Thousands of tenants register on the Rentdirectuk.co.uk web site looking for the right place to live.
5
Another free service for landlords, www.propertyleadersuk.com - sets up landlords who can't do their own viewings with estate agents. Not all landlords fancy going to loads of estate agents or they may not be in the same area as the property they want to rent out.
6
They book in the viewings with the landlord and the tenant. They can do the viewing on a paid service if you wanted them to.
7
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I initially started this website because I wanted to document my every step from property idiot to property landlord,
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TB
1