[Hilton]

Have others noticed the rise in lettings and rental related enquiries ?

Certainly this is going to be a major growth sector for many years to come mainly due the current economic situation and first time buyers being unable to make the deposit required for a mortgage.
The average age now for a first time buyer is 30 yrs of age.

Of course they do not want to live with mum and dad but can not afford to buy, so are moving into the rented market hence the growth, I can see this booming in the next five years.

We have had a love- hate relationship with lettings agencies in the past but I think we need to take a different look at it now and are looking to set up relationships which will mutually benefit both parties, offering a better VFM service by way of rate cards so they know before cleaning what the costs are likely to be  or/and offering an inventory service linked to the cleaning.

Agencies tell me that disputes between tennants and landlords/letting agencies have rocketed with cleaning costs being one of the major factors in the disputes, ie condition of carpets pre let as opposed to post let as a consequence deposits are lost and a dispute begins.

Is anybody doing and experiencing  something similar ?

[Adam P]

i personall think this will actually shrink. where as before people woud live somewhere a couple years and then move into their own house or another better place, they wont now as they can't afford it. they'll have to rent and stay put for longer meaning less cleans for that property. in that time they are less likely to clean the carpets every 6 months/1 year as why would they care, and then when they move they chose the cheapest rather then someone who will take care of someone elses carpets or even just rent a rug doctor. it's not their carpets they just need to show it's been cleaned.

it's also less money per clean. our compeition charges £120 for a property to be cleaned and £140 with carpets, so that's £20 for a full property carpets. hardly worth it and def not worth it for someone who just does carpets as how can you compete with someone offering both services for far less.

[petermaybury]

omg doom and gloom I am going to lose the 10s of 1000,s of £ s that we do with rental properties after 20 years I might as well just pack up.
The rental market will continue to grow untill the government changes any tax/ income benefits on the ownership of multiple properties. There is a lot of business out there a lot of how much of it you get with depend on your attiude.


Peter
www.carpetcleaningcardiff.com

[Adam P]

i honeslty don't get your post petermaybury. why are you on about doom and gloom? also when you say the rental market will continue to grow, do you mean the carpet cleaning or the rental market or just renters in general will grow or both?

[Steve Rothwell]

I believe that he was extracting the Michael out of your post kermit.



 

[Adam P]

yeah but it didn't make sense. i send it'll shrink imo because of xyz and he said doom and gloom. there's taking the pee and there's whatever petermaybury was trying to do

[Shaun_Ashmore]

In my view the rental market for cleaning is expanding with the terms and conditions of the tennancy agreements but as 1st time buyers can't get a mortgage or won't commit to a big mortgage  the reverse is that you can't get many buy to let mortgages are hard to come by I am wanting 2 but I need to put 40% down to get a decent APR even though I have equity in my other buy to lets which are paid for, the banks are allowing renting to become bigger and bigger where landlords numbers will stay the same creating higher rents and in turn not many new mortgages.

From a cleaning point of view we will do well albeit price sensitive.

Shaun

[Simon@arenaclean]

I have done 5 EOT full cleans each averaging £325 in the past 3 weeks, and I have 2 more for next week so something is moving and it represents real growth. Deposits are a months rent in our area. I always recommend to the agencies I work with to take photo's during inventory to save on disputes later. It still staggers me how thoughtless some tenants can be I have seen some real grotty kitchens, complete lackof basic hygene. One i'm convinced never vacuumed. Some of these properties are turning around 6 monthly or yearly and we are repeating work particularly in 2 bedroom/small house sized properties.

[petermaybury]

I was taking the p the letting market is massive and it is lucrative if you can really get an opportunity to ply your trade. Many landlords are skipping cleanable carpets because they have the mentality that a carpet cleaner is a carpet cleaner. I have a lot of customers letting agents, house-letters, housing associations etc that do not even ask for a price but tell me to go and do my stuff. It takes time to build up relationships and many of my clients have used me for years. I have just done a job for a letting agent ( the largest in our area) that I have been marketing to for 15 years. I have been going into their office and not been able to meet any descision makers then a few weeks ago did a job for the owners brother in law who sang my praises. So the first thing the owner of the letting agency said to me when he saw the results was " if I had used you years ago I would have save myself a small fortune".
So we will see where that on goes. You can not do a good job for peanuts and you cannot run descent equipment for nothing.
Even in this day and age there are a lot of large volume customers that have not seen truckmounts in action and there is always an opportunity,  if you are negative about things you will not get anywhere.

Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.com

[Adam P]

ok i must have miss read the thread. i thought we were talking about our opinions on how the size of the market will change because of the current economic crisis and not is it a big market.

because it was big for the last 15 years doesn't disprove that as wallets get tighter it'll now become smaller and a harder market to get into due to the reasons i listed. i think it's fair to say less people will move now (then if there wasn't an economic crisis), less people will want to pay good money for a clean, less peopel will even want to get a cleaner as they can rent a rug doctor and do it to a good enough standard by themselves, less peopel will buy expensive carpets that need more "time" spent and therefore a bigger bill

i still don't get the taking the pee. i said i tihnk it'll get smaller now then if there wasn't an economic crisis. you took the pee as you think it's a big market but i never said it was small. ok...

[Ian Gourlay]

In my view the rental market for cleaning is expanding with the terms and conditions of the tennancy agreements but as 1st time buyers can't get a mortgage or won't commit to a big mortgage  the reverse is that you can't get many buy to let mortgages are hard to come by I am wanting 2 but I need to put 40% down to get a decent APR even though I have equity in my other buy to lets which are paid for, the banks are allowing renting to become bigger and bigger where landlords numbers will stay the same creating higher rents and in turn not many new mortgages.

From a cleaning point of view we will do well albeit price sensitive.

Shaun

If they are paid for sell them to a holding company put 40$ down and take out new mortgage use  remaining cash for deposits on new investments

[Hilton]

i personall think this will actually shrink. where as before people woud live somewhere a couple years and then move into their own house or another better place, they wont now as they can't afford it. they'll have to rent and stay put for longer meaning less cleans for that property. in that time they are less likely to clean the carpets every 6 months/1 year as why would they care, and then when they move they chose the cheapest rather then someone who will take care of someone elses carpets or even just rent a rug doctor. it's not their carpets they just need to show it's been cleaned.

it's also less money per clean. our compeition charges £120 for a property to be cleaned and £140 with carpets, so that's £20 for a full property carpets. hardly worth it and def not worth it for someone who just does carpets as how can you compete with someone offering both services for far less.

This is exactly where the disputes will come from, if you are the landlord and the Tennant hires a DIY machine the results will not be acceptable to you or the next Tennant so they refuse the clean and will then get a professional in.Of course the Tennant moving out will be stung twice then for the clean which comes out of his deposit....This crops up all the time and is the most common dispute in our experience.

[Adam P]

if disputes are at an all time high over cleaning, and the most common reason is because the tenant is now doing it themselves this kind of proves my point that more tenants are choosing the cheaper option and not the expensive professionals. although many get disputed a bet many don't. we've done plenty of cleans where the tenant has said they'll clean the oven/carpet as they don't think it's worth paying the money for someone else to do the one job and they get it to a good standard. As this economic crisis continues more people will look to cheaper methods.

[Ian Gourlay]

Most tenants are brow beaten by landlords

Often the Carpet is not worth the price of the clean

If a carpet is aledgley ruined due to say a make up stain

Landlords think new carpet

Not so

Carpet 7 years old cost £80

Landlords loss £5

I talked to  a guy who runs an inventory company and has the qualification

He assures me this is the legal outcome

[Hilton]

if disputes are at an all time high over cleaning, and the most common reason is because the tenant is now doing it themselves this kind of proves my point that more tenants are choosing the cheaper option and not the expensive professionals. although many get disputed a bet many don't. we've done plenty of cleans where the tenant has said they'll clean the oven/carpet as they don't think it's worth paying the money for someone else to do the one job and they get it to a good standard. As this economic crisis continues more people will look to cheaper methods.

Obviously not if enquiries and bookings are up.

Dont think you read my reply properly, people are trying to clean themselves thinking that in its self is good enough, which of course its not if its a poor result and not acceptable to the landlord.

The landlord/letting agent will want proof by way of a invoice to show new a tennant that the carpet has been properly cleaned.

If there is a make up stain or similar on the carpet that was not there on letting then the landlord is within his rights to get the carpet cleaned and if it fails take a portion of the deposit for both the cleaning and the carpet replacement, allowing for wear and tear.

[clinton]

I id one last week and they had also used some sort of hire machine.

The residue and foam was unbelivable that came out

[murky]

Letting agents in our area are saying that things are stagnant, once people are in, they stay. In.

The rates for EOT cleaning is on the floor, dont know how people make a profit, went into an agency tother week and their current cleaners were just walking out. It was there office cleaners doing it! Couple of bog rolls in a tray, some j cloths and a few different types of Mr Muscle.

My other half has a few properties and the tennants are staying, arent moving, she hasnt put the rents up for ages, so tenants stay. If they go you nearly allways a have a month or so slack whereby you dont have some one in there paying rent.

Also one of my biggest LA's has now gone into doing Inventories  as ther isnt the profit in the lettings anymore and no agro either. No moaning tennants or moaning Landlords. Evidently easier money and lots of it.

[Hilton]

Begs the question if they are doing inventories then they must be letting 

Probably a geographical thing but we have had an uplift in enquiries.

[Adam P]

hilton: afaik most inventory companies are separate from the estate agent i suppose so they haven't got conflicting interests.

from this thread it's clear for the past 15 years this has been a decent sized market. i'd say you're getting enquiries now not because it's become bigger but because you're say higher on google, or competition no longer does this etc.

i can't see why overall this market would grow due to the economic crisis.

[Steve Rothwell]

I have recently been getting more EOT's, but by the tenants and not the letting agents.

I only do carpet and upholstery though and not the whole kit ie ovens and walls etc.