“Relo was born out of the frustration that I experienced as a tenant. Most people who have rented will be familiar with the appalling way that tenants are typically treated by letting agents. Eye-watering rents for sub-par accommodation, serious maintenance issues that are never dealt with, deposits that are never returned and an overall sense that as a tenant you are a number, not a person. When
I decided to invest in property and become a landlord myself I was determined not to be like the landlords I’d known when I was a tenant. I asked myself: what would I want a letting agent to do for me if we were renting again? I put in place a service that I would want to receive. I then took things one stage further by asking my tenants what they thought. Constant feedback helped (and helps) I understand what works and what doesn’t and improve accordingly. My aim was to create a service where the tenants were the most important people, not the least. For a few years that was exactly what I did. My intention at that stage was never to do anything more than have a small portfolio of properties that would give me a passive income. But almost without realising it, I had created a brand that stood for extraordinary customer service, exceptional accommodation and personal, professional service. I had other landlords starting come to me to ask me to rent their rooms on their behalf. They could see how easily my houses attracted top-quality tenants who were happy to pay higher-than-normal rents because of the quality of the accommodation they could live in and the standard of service they would receive. By tapping into the power of the Relo knowledge, approach and brand, landlords could see how they could get their rooms filled faster with better quality tenants paying better rents. It was then the thought occurred: what if I expanded my brand to take on other landlords’ properties? What if I were to disrupt the typical letting agency approach and shake up the market? Of course, I needed to be careful not to damage the brand I had built up by growing too fast. To my surprise, landlords were just as delighted to be put on a waiting list as tenants were because they knew the wait would be worth it. I also needed to be extremely selective in the landlords Relo worked with so we didn’t lose our ability to deliver the service we’d built our name on or the quality of accommodation we were associated with. We take the same approach today. We wait until we can comfortably expand our capacity and only then do we take on any new landlords. Relo also makes sure we are a good fit with our landlords and that they share the same values as we do. In doing so, we can maintain the standards that our landlords and tenants value so highly. Our promise is simple. Relo manages our landlords’ properties in the same way as I managed my own property when I had just six tenants. We only put the very best tenants into our landlords’ properties. In this way, our tenants get a great experience of letting and our landlords get great returns on their investments. If you are currently investing in HMOs or multi-let properties and are interested to see how we can help you, we welcome the opportunity to discuss your requirements.”
