Imitation is what?

Lack of imagination that's what!

Look what I found on the doormat of a property I went to do a viewing at today



BlueDoor has always offered £50 if you recommend a landlord to us and we let their property. The offer is at the foot of every email we send out and we add it to other paperwork periodically which I might add is at no cost to landlords unlike printing and delivering junk mail.

What we do is is straightforward and simple. At the risk of sounding like Nick Clegg, we are straight forward with you up front.

Andrews on the other hand say 'You could receive £50' You helpfully fill in your details and the details of your friend which they then add to their database.

We don't collect data about anyone's friends. What usually happens is that a new landlord contacts us and says that they were recommended by so and so who is someone we know. We call their friend to thank them and put a cheque in the post or add a credit to their account if they are one of our landlords.

We offer Fixed Fees so no matter what your rent is you pay the same as everyone else. We treat everyone fairly which is why everyone pays the same fee.

Ring Andrews and ask them how fair they are.

Onward and Upward

Tonight I've been on Rightmove adding some new instructions and I thought I'd have a look at those folks who I consider to be our competitors and see what they are offering to let this month. This is not a list of all the agents locally just some who I spy on to see what they are up to!

The results just in, hot off the screen are as follows:

Hodsons Abingdon 7 properties Go Robin and Joe!

Hodsons Didcot 14 properties Go Trudles! (she is good you know!)

Andrews Abingdon 8 properties Go Andrew!

Buckell and Ballard Abingdon 12 properties Go James!

Allen and Harris 13 properties Off to a good start....!

Lansbrough Lettings 11 properties Go Hadrian!

Chancellors 11 properties Go team!

Abingdon Lettings Centre 17 properties Go Dougie!

BlueDoor has 20 properties and none are advertised with any other agents unlike some of those above. I could pretend that I don't know what we are doing that other people aren't but I can't be that modest! We are the only people who will answer the phone on a Sunday and take on a property there and then if that is what the landlord wants. We are the only flat fee agents in the county and no amount of maths can disguise the fact that even 10% of your rent is often a lot more than our fee of £65 per month for full management. Oh and we'll give you £50 if you recommend a landlord to us and we let their property for them.

We have not been trading for quite three years yet and we already have a big share of the local and Oxfordshire market because we are unusual. Big corporate companies with lots of office space, staff, overheads and cars are becoming difficult to justify in this market. Slim businesses, smart use of time and frankly crappy looking cars are obviously the way to go!

How many offices have you walked past this week and seen people at their desks surfing the internet or making cups of tea? If you are a landlord you are paying for that to happen and if I were you I'd be wondering if my money was being well spent.

We had the pleasure of taking over the management of a property in Didcot this week and when I popped in to collect the keys from the old agents I was faced with a ghost of my corporate past that I thought was well and truly buried. I only asked how it was going just as you would if you bumped ito a friend in the street and I got a most bizarre response: 'I completed so many lets last month my conversion rate is 1 in 5 which must mean that my applicant matching is really good'. Gosh. Is that a good thing?

We don't use that kind of speak here. We advertise with lots of pictures, do viewings and let properties. We don't have a white board with targets, yields, conversion rates and completions which needs to be monitored and updated daily or someone gets it in the neck. I used to work in a place with one of those though and my colleagues were always irked that my numbers were regularly bigger than theirs in every column.

Smug, me? No, just quite good at this job!

Oh well that's my ramblings for today. Let me find a picture or two for you now.

First, these are our favourite locksmiths who we like because they share our view of how to get business done.

And secondly, probably the highest stairwell I've seen for some time. I don't envy the decorators who painted this! There are stairs there I promise, I just couldn't get the window and the stairs in at once without getting dizzy.

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.

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

Would you like a cheque for £50?

Did you know that you can get £50 when you recommend a landlord and we let their property with our full management service? Well you can and a good number of our landlords and friends are pleased as punch when they get their cheque in the post.


Maybe that's why this week has been so busy. We've got a new property in Peachcroft by recommendation as well as flats inJackman Close and Headington. The gorgeous house in the previous post is let subject to contract as is the lovely family place in Radley.



I had a raised eyebrow when taking the internal photos of the Peachcroft house because one of the bedrooms has a lot of green plants under lamps. I thought I was going to have to ring the old bill! The current tenant isn't a small time dealer though, he's an orchid collector - thank goodness.





Then new tenants have moved into Caldecott Road and are even happier now that a good man has been in there and not found any spirits needing sending towards the light. The chap had looked at letting the house himself so gave it the once over. Apparently there a quite a few places in Abingdon where spirits have needed a nudge to move on. They aren't usually bad; they're just a bit lost between here and there. I might get him to check out all our properties before letting them in the future!