Get Rightmove on your mobile

We have had a few calls from folks lately saying that they were down in Oxfordshire looking at properties which they didn't like only to go home and look at rightmove again and find a property of ours that they DID like. If you have an iPhone you never need to have that happen to you again.

Why? Because you can get an app for Rightmove!




You can download it for free and look at all the lovely pictures we use to advertise all our lovely properties. You can flick through them with your finger very easily and if you are near wifi it is amazingly fast.

Nice. Get your app and never miss a property!

Holy fish in my eye BartMan

Look at the bend on those kitchen cupboards. Who'd buy a house with such bendy furniture?

Oh, silly me.

The estate agent's fish-eye camera lens strikes again.

I use a normal camera with a lovely flip out and spin LCD screen. It takes pictures that actually look like the thing I have pointed it at. It is pure rocket science really and means that when someone sees my pictures on rightmove then goes to the house, they recognise the rooms!

Topical Tip of the month

It is freezing some nights isn't it? If you are cold, your pipes are too and if you drink the water from the bathroom tap in the middle of the night you might freeze your teeth! Brrrr.

Here are some tips from Direct Line insurers

• Insulate your pipes with preformed insulation, and replace the washers on any dripping taps - if the taps freeze, the pipe will get blocked.

• Know where your water valves are, and learn how to shut them off in case a pipe does burst.

• In very cold weather the heating will need to be on low, or set to come on a couple of times a day, especially if you're going away.

• Open the loft trapdoor on cold days to let heat in.

Click here to read more about protecting your home from leaks caused by burst pipes.

We Simpsons are about as frugal as you can be in lots of ways but we don't scrimp on keeping the house warm enough to keep the water flowing through the pipes. We don't have it like the Bahamas though! We use an oil filled radiator in our living room, freeze in the kitchen and get under the feather duvet at night but we keep the heating switched to constant and the thermostat on about 12-15 most of the time A few nights this month we have heard it click and the heating come on inthe small hours but this is a GOOD thing.

Keeping the chill off the house while you are at work means that it warms up more quickly when you get home. Your central heating switching on and switching off is good for the boiler and keeps it all from seizing up through lack of use.

If the bills worry you then save money elsewhere by taking a packed lunch to work, leaving your car at home when you can and asking your Mum or Gran for some tips on cooking from scratch to save on all those take aways!

Water going places it shouldn't can lead to scenes like this:

Thames Water had a broken pipe under the ground in front of this flat. The grass and weeds there grew like...grass and weeds but the flat was also curiously damp despite there being no leaks from anything inside and the shower pressure was very low. After investigating all possible causes we ended up calling Thames Water to check the pressure on the water main.

They found a crack and got some men out to fix it the same day. Thanks to our dehumidifiers the flat is now nice and dry and the problem is solved. Who'd have thought one call could make diggers appear so quickly! If only everything could be fixed so swiftly and without a bill to the landlord!

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.

Bluedoor Bluedoor how does your garden grow?

It grows with the help of Mr Green Fingers Richard Taylor our favourite gardener. (Don't tell my mother in law!)

He has transformed the garden of one of our newbuild properties from a muddy place to this

If your garden is looking worse for wear or you would just like to give it a new look give us a call and we'll put you in touch.

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!

Christmas is coming and the feet are getting cold

This is the fireplace where the lovely Mr and Ms P will be warming themselves just in time for Christmas.

This property is so good that it comes with a fully kitted out miniature house in the garden - a much better escape from the madness than the traditional shed!

Their landlords Mr and Mrs P (different 'P' honest!) will have their rent minus our very reasonable fee before Christmas too - what a bonus. We pay 'out' on the same day the tenants pay 'in' wherever possible.

Check out our fees on the Services page at www.bdea.co.uk and see the difference

We tempt tenants.

Large, good quality, external and internal photos are all part of our service. Photos encourage tenants to click on your property and when they like what they see they contact us.

Have a look at other letting agents' web advertising and see how they compare.
See the difference at http://www.bdea.co.uk