Some pictures from 2008

Perhaps you haven't visited our own website yet at bluedoorlettings.com but if you have and you think it looks good that is only partly down to me! All the hard work was done by a team of fantastic chaps at Switch Media in Liverpool.

I went up to visit them in the summer to talk about a new idea I have and I took some pictures while I was there. I had no idea that Liverpool was so cool! I'd never been there before and found everyone to be really friendly which was great for me who can talk the hind leg off a donkey.

Here are some Super LambBananas which I think were to to with the Capital of Culture 2008
This is Steve and Will the web designers
And some views that you don't see in Abingdon. I felt like a right country mouse visiting the Big Smoke!

And now to the countryside. I saw this nest and little chicks at a house in Eynsham in the spring. They were down low next to the front door so mama bird must have been quite confident that a cat wasn't going to get them!
Perhaps they thought I might feed them!

And here's a comfy cat (or is it a snake?) just for balance


Continuing on the animal theme, I almost jumped out of my skin at a new property on Cumnor Hill a couple of months ago. I pulled into the drive and got out of the car and as I turned around towards the house I was faced by a big deer about 10ft away. I think I out-stared him because he moved before I did!

My office is at the top of the stairs in 7 Stert Street and the dogs from downstirs in Redmayne Bentley have got me down as a soft touch. They wait until I am in my chair in the mornings before slinking up the stairs and poking their noses round the door for a biscuit.

We've had a couple of dog friendly houses this year too and the current owner's dogs featured in the advertising we did. A new dog is now happily installed and no doubt still sniffing the garden like mad!

Another year almost gone

It is almost the end of another year. We are still here fighting the good fight, doing lettings as it should be done and keeping landlords and tenants happy.

We are still growing, meeting new people and finding that people like us and what we do. We have only lost three customers in the whole time we have been trading which is a pity but we don't seem to be able to deal well with control freaks who want to micromanage everything about their property themselves. You pay us £65 per month to get on with it not to do it all yourself! Oh well, they have gone to new agents who we know are now suffering as we did.

Sadly not all agents have survived this past year. Charles Lawson has gone from Stert Street, Buckell and Ballard Sales or Adkin as it used to be has gone from the High Street and their lettings department from Bath Street have moved in there.

We hope that everyone else in Abingdon can hang on in the year to come as even though people hate estate agents for some reason we are all human and lots of us have families who need a salary coming in every month to keep a roof over their heads.

We are still hopeful that our way of doing business will continue to be attractive to new customers and there is no reason why it shouldn't be. We are the only fixed price agents in Oxfordshire with no add-ons or odd charges for this and that, just one simple fee and in times when money is tight even landlords like to know exactly what they will be paying out from month to month (barring changes in VAT......)

And, if I hit the target for new lets set by the wife I can buy myself a new pen!

Abingdon Blog Man He says YES!

Well the man from Abingdon's blog has put us back on his links! Thanks for that! It really is the best place to catch up on what is happening in Abingdon!

Happy Christmas to him and all who look at this blog and the popular www.abingdonblog.co.uk!

Been struck off the Abingdon Blog!

Well with this old credit crunch we have been so busy letting the properties that will not sell that I haven't updated this blog for months and months!!! To top it all the Abingdon Blog man has taken me off his links which made me a little sad.

Anyhooooo I hope to keep updating it from now on!

Bicester Agents get Blue Door'd but we come in peace

Oh yes. What agents in Abingdon and Oxford have long known and feared will now be visited on Bicester agents.

They will do market appraisals and hear potential landlords say "We've had Blue Door round, can you tell me exactly what you do differently for 12%+VAT of my monthly rent? They will probably mutter something like "We pay a man to put up an unsightly board which advertises our company at your expense" or "We will put one tiny picture of your property among 20 others on a page of a newspaper"

They will struggle to come up with anything else really because that is all they do that we don't do. the list of what we do that they don't do is a bit longer.

They need to take heed. They will need to up their web advertising from one paltry photo to at least 10 or so. They will also need to answer emails late at night, take phone calls on a Sunday, do viewings and MAs at times to suit the customer not the office tea and biscuit schedule and they will need to charge a more realistic fee for their work.

Flat fees are the way forward. No renewal fees are also more honest. We're unusual: they are all the same.

They don't yet know how many properties we have in Bicester because they won't see any boards, we don't always get time to put properties on our website either as they are snapped up too fast. We remain a mystery to the competition and that's how we like it. We expect more 'phishy' emails enquiring about our fees from dodgy Hotmail addresses as our name spreads on the lips of those who love us for what we are.

Here's a little bit of maths for you to try out.

What is 12% of £750?

Use the % button on your calculator if you like or do this: Multiply 725 by 0.12 (12 hundredths, which is what 12% is) then press equals. You get 90.00.
Make it into money £90.00 then add VAT if you are sitting down.

YIKES YIKES YIKES!

Now compare Blue Door's fees

Rent PCM	Blue Door Management Fee	Percentage of Rent
£695.00	£65.00	9%
£750.00	£65.00	8.7%
£850.00	£65.00	7.6%
£950.00	£65.00	6.8%
£1200.00	£65.00	5.4%

Even when you add VAT our fees are a reasonable £76.38

If you do the maths and find that you are paying too much for the management of your rental property give us a ring. If you don't have a rental property and this means nothing to you - tell someone else! If we get their business, you get £50. Simple.

Good news from houseladder! Click link at bottom of the post!

Decent arguments for staying in buy-to-let market

Posted: 24 Jul 2008 14:08:59 GMT

According to finance site, fool.co.uk, there are a number of "decent" arguments for landlords to stay in the housing market.

The site quotes figures from Paragon Mortgages buy-to-let survey, which shows that rental yields reached their highest level in two years in June and are now at 6.4 per cent and seven per cent.

Welsh landlords and those in the north and north-west are most profitable achieving seven per cent rental yields.

Research reveals that rental incomes have also risen by nearly 12 per cent over the last year and property values have, according to Paragon, risen by 7.5 per cent year on year.

However, Paragon did admit that property prices have only risen by 0.2 per cent over the past six months.

Commenting on the current situation for investors, Christina Jordan of fool.co.uk said: "It seems that for the serious buy-to-let investor, the market is still attractive in many ways. Added compliance costs, plus the added mortgage costs are not enough to put off landlords who are still seeing a decent return on their investment."

Ms Jordan also makes the point that with many first-time buyers finding it difficult to get on the property ladder, the demand for rental property is currently high.

© Houseladder Ltd

Mmmmm Summer

Summer makes everyone mad don't you think? We are all too hot to stand around much or rush around much. More people are antsy and irritable and I am one of them I am ashamed to say.

Did you hear the traffic news yesterday about the delays on the A34 and A44 due the 50th CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace? I was in it for an hour and a half in the morning trying to get to Yarnton only to get there and find that my viewing had cancelled. Then I came back to Abingdon to do a local viewing and had a call from someone who said they were waiting for me at Yarnton.

I told her I may be an hour or so and set off again for another looong journey with the air con cranked right up. (Air con is the one thing I love about my car which has no other redeeming features) I got the re at last and the electricians said they had let her in to have a look around. Thanks for letting me know. Back in the car again...

I've had cancellations all over the place this week and lots of other people tag teaming me on the phone. If you call me and you are the other half of a couple who called an hour before, can you say so? I've had three couples interested in the same property and they have all been calling me individually and it messes with my head. I don't lie and if I honestly have not heard back from a landlord about your offer and have promised to call you when I do, I will. Honest. Really. I am unusual but I'm like that.

Now I've got that off my chest, apparently some folks thought that the photo from the post below was a stock picture from somewhere or other. We don't do fake pictures here my friends, oh no. That is cake made by my lovely wife, hand-picked strawberries and Nanny Rachel's best blue china which we get out for cake-eating occasions. Here they are at another cakey-do.

I'm off to eat some more cake and have a quiet evening. Enjoy the sunshine!

Summer!

Summer is here at last and wow what rain! I can't step out of the office without getting wet. I've been out and about taking pictures of more new properties and managing to avoid getting raindrops on the lens of the camera! We've had a birthday in the family too this week and celebrated with the best home-made chocolate cake and the loveliest Peachcroft strawberries.



Is your mouth watering?

This time last year was when Blue Door really started to get busy and now we are renewing tenancies for happy tenants and letting new properties to newly-happy tenants. Our landlords and tenants have been busy since this time last year too with several having babies and others tying the knot.

Blue Door can't guarantee happiness of that order with every tenancy but we do try our best with the little things.

Board Stupid?
or
Board Silly?

Free Advertising? Nothing is life is free my friends, someone has to pay and it is likely to be you as you are the only people giving agents any money! Do you want to pay for this stuff that visually litters our streets then can end up abandoned like these boards?

We don't do boards, we don't do flash cars, we don't do plasma window displays and we don't do suits. We are unusual but what we do works just as well as all those other companies who are spending all your money on power hungry window displays and gas guzzling cars.

If you want to go greener you should think BLUE. Call us for a market appraisal and we will call or email you then fro then on communicate with you using as little paper as possible. When we do need to write to you it will be on recycled paper.

We will encourage your tenants to use kerbside recycling and energy efficient light bulbs. We will fit a Carbon Monoxide detector in your property not because anything with 'Carbon' in the title is cool nowadays but because we value your tenants lives.

Blue Door Unusual and green

Poor Boards! Alone and abandoned

What captions do you think should sit above these pictures?

Didcot has a New Mayor

Mr Tony Harbour..... who used to be most famous for being the face of the Property Weekly and rather less famous for being a guest at our wedding way back in 2002 when Tony and I both worked for Bradford and Bingley group, better known as Adkin. You can read more about his plans for Didcot here in the Didcot Herald and here too

We wish him every success this year and are sure that he can put Didcot on the map in a good way for a change.

Photo by Oxford Mail

Alistair the Estate Agent

We stay up far too late making our eyes bleed watching stuff on You Tube...

Good things in Abingdon

We have been looking down on the street out of our window and seen some friends who have taken a while to see that we are calling them from above, not along the street! We have had some folks bold enough to ring our bell and come up and sit in our comfy chairs for a cup of tea too, which has been nice.

Over on the Abingdon blog it seems that some people think the town is going to the dogs. Whatever next! We do bemoan the lack of this and that here but it is after all a little town close to a big town so you can't complain too much. As for it looking derelict take a look at this:


What could be more idyllic? Roll on Summer.

In other business we have been looking around the internet to see what other agents are up to and finding some new lettings heads poking up above the parapet. That my friends is a sign of the sales market hitting the fan; when the market slows down they all turn to lettings for a bit of monthly income.

Some new businesses have also appeared no doubt after reading the property pages in the broadsheets saying that everyone will be renting for the foreseeable future as no-one will be able to afford a house or get a mortgage for one. One such new business declares itself to be 'Revolutionary' We make no such claims, as you know. All we do is make it simple, which is unusual.

What do you think about doing Market Appraisals on a Sunday, transparent fixed fees and being left like the un-sporty kid on the sidelines when the team is picked? The 'winning' agents refused to go out on a Sunday, charge a percentage and all sorts of add-ons, advertise with one picture and wear shiny suits. What gives? Maybe they thought I was too honest and that didn't fit with the stereotype.

It's not all bad though, as we have got a gorgeous flat on in Waddesdon just close to the Manor there which I have to say is much more in keeping with the high standard of property Blue Door - and our tenants like.

One of our long-standing landlords is cashing in his nest egg and looking to travel the world so has put his rental house up for sale. He instructed some agents who duly came and took measurements and pictures but he contacted us to say that he is really disappointed with how they are advertising his property as we did a much better job when we let it. Come on chaps! You've all got swanky digital cameras so take some more pictures and make houses look good! (It takes next to no time to upload them if you hold down the ctrl key as you select from your folders)

We are in the market for buying ourselves now that the small people are growing larger and larger but my missus is getting a bit picky about what we bother going to see if they aren't many pictures as she is a bit suspicious of what the agents might be hiding!

Wow! Blog readers!

Welcome to all our new readers who have found us via ThisAbingdon blog. We were quite surprised to see that so many people had hit our blog on Wednesday after Backstreeter's post about us.

If you are a careful checker of photos you will have noticed that one of the To Let signs he was talking about getting larger is in fact on the wall of our new office! David and Mark over at Meeson Williams will be surprised at their new found infamy!

We have had some lovely potential tenants viewing properties this week including Kathy who emailed us last week to say "I saw a few advertisements of yours on rightmove and liked your ethos and humourous approach! Please let us know if you think you have anything that would suit us. Thank you very much."

She was really pleased to see me on Saturday and find that I wasn't another greasy youth dressed in a shiny suit who didn't know anything about the property they were viewing. I rarely wear a suit nowadays or even a tie. I do wear shirts though and most of them are double-cuff if that makes any difference! I also know a lot about our properties and our service which is apparently tricky information to find out from many agents on a Saturday.

I started as a Saturday viewings lad back in the early 90s but I can assure you that I was almost as attentive to detail back then as I am now. I had very good teachers though which I think is what is missing from the business nowadays; anyone can start up an estate agents or lettings business and although many of them do a good job it isn't always a good thing.

Anyhow, I am glad that people feel that they know something about us from reading our adverts as we have always tried to set ourselves apart from the other agents in more ways than just price. If you are a landlord or a tenant give us a ring to see why we are the Unusual Agents. New office, same phone: 01235 524800

Moving things

The lads did sterling work today and my old office now looks rather sad and empty and the new one is now wired up, connected and stacked with paperwork. Unfortunately the filing cabinets haven't arrived yet so I am surrounded by mountains of filing boxes.

I hope the lads had a good hot shower when they got home because they might ache tomorrow. Two hours of going up three flights of stairs, down three flights, up the road and up one flight of stairs then down again while carrying all kinds of stuff might just be a bit more exercise than they are used to! We had some odd looks from folks in town, especially some ladies waiting at the bus stop who eyed them most suspiciously as they were carrying the desktop photocopier past them.

Hopefully Rachel can start organising it all on Monday as I have absolutely no skills in office tidyness whatsoever.

I have got some new headed paper and business cards on order from Laserset in Abingdon who are fantastic. They are a relatively small company who offer great service and rapid turnaround on any job I order from them.

Despite sending out a lot of our paperwork via email we still get through reams of paper every month but all our agreements are on recycled paper and we use recycled envelopes too. If only I could recycle the postage too!

One more thing: this is a snippet of email from a third time landlord Mr R "Many thanks with all the help given. I think you have given me a fantastic
service and will not even think of using any other letting service."

Thank you Mr R; it is so nice to be appreciated.

We have moved

It is with some sadness that we have left number 25 Bridge Street to its fate at the hands of Cranborne Homes but with men in suits spraying the walls with words like 'poor' and 'danger' we thought it was time to go.

Our new place is at 5-7 Stert Street just next to Pizza Express, across the road from Added Ingredients, up the road from Pamela Lucas and Mostly Books and above a stock broker. We are in good company!

Here is the view from my window down the street























and up























I had some help from Richard our IT man.



He built the 'puter under the desk and Dabs are sending me a monitor for it tomorrow. He also helped me put the desk up which was more of a 2 person job than I had originally thought! Don't worry though I won't be looking at the wall all day as I've got another desk to have by the window which will be just for the phone and some pens..... I hope.






The 3 smallest people in our family also helped a bit


The eldest will take his turn in the week to help me move all the files, other office hardware, Colette our long lived houseplant who grew out of the space she was in at home and a few other plants I have rescued over the last year or so.

I even have an entryphone thing so just press for BLUEDOOR and come and have a cup of tea if you are passing.

Our lovely Logo...

...is two whole years old now and we still think its so cool. I haven't posted it for a while so feast your eyes on this

Musings of a perplexed agent

This week has been a scramble to get people referenced, their money in and the keys into their hands after all the viewings over the holiday weekend. I don't think any other agents were open so all the folk looking for places to rent ended up on our doorstep.

I did a market appraisal on the Thursday and haven't heard from the prospective LandLady despite trying to call her to ask her if I had upset her. As I do in these cases I checked rightmove to see if it was on with anyone else.

It is: with FK. Why, I wonder? There is one picture of the front of the place and 3 bullet points including the fact that you could fit a table into the kitchen. No further description or interior photos.

When I met the LandLady she told me that her partner would be doing the negotiation of our percentage and I think I took the wind out her sails by telling her that there was no need to negotiate as we just have a flat fee £65+VAT for full management. She looked bemused and said that that was cheaper than any of the others had quoted her for just rent collection.

So why? Is it that I don't have a flash car or wear a shiny suit? Is it becuase I am honest about possible rents and I move good tenants in quickly and hardly ever have any voids?

If you have ever found us on the internet I'm sure you will agree that we show more picutres of properties than anyone else out there except perhaps LL (you know who you are you cheeky- fireplace-photograper-you) and he only does it on his sales properties. Our descriptions are interesting and often funny and really tell you something about the property.

Perhaps people think that you get a cheap service from us and they would prefer to pay a premium and get a premium service. I would turn that on its head and ask why pay a premium for the same service?

What do you get for that premium? It certainly isn't better advertising or viewings on a bank holiday weekend.

Hello to all those of you who have missed us. We miss you too: give me a ring you miserable lot. Its 01235 524800 or alternatively you can fax me pictures of my head made to look like Ming the Merciless on 01235 524500.

What the Agents Say

I've been reading the ads this week from the Oxford papers and around Reading and I thought that they could do with some Bluedoor honestly lessons.

Try these for size:

Good access to A34 - you can hear it from the bedroom.

Close to amenities - above a shop and its probably a chip shop or a bookies.

Deceptively spacious - has large cupboards in small rooms

Guaranteed let in 28 days*
*Terms and conditions apply - we will let it to anyone we can find who will pay the least rent.

Ideal for sharers - families won't like the carpet or the scabby kitchen

Full of character - draughty original windows....

Low maintenance garden - gravel pit spread out flat and no signs of green life

Annexe - right next door to the nosy landlord

Rural location - the ar*e end of nowhere with no amenities.

I'd love to move back to the countryside but my dear wife won't be further than a short walk or a bike ride from a shop. If we ever move we are more likely to move somewhere bigger than Abingdon than to a village or a country lane. She'd like to keep chickens though so I'll have to find a town place with a massive garden......

One of our fav money men!

Andy Kenny

Consultant
Savills Private Finance
Caxton House
1, Fore St,
Birmingham
B2 5ER

Tel: 0121 634 8490 or 8496 Direct
Mobile:07967 555 864

If he can't help you no one can!

Please quote bluedoor greg when calling him!

Sorry for not bloggin' for a while

What a year and what a start to 2008! We were so busy the end of 2007 that we forgot to blog.

Our FIXED FLAT FEES are really starting to get through to people and the FACT that WE CAN SAVE LANDLORDS MONEY!

But from now on we are going to try even harder to keep up wth the bloggin'!