What is your background?
I fell into property management by mistake. In 2007, I left my previous career in corporate sales behind and enrolled on a Masters course in urban real estate management and development at Heriot-Watt University with the intention of becoming a commercial property surveyor. However, when I graduated in 2008, the property market and wider economy had collapsed and all of the large commercial surveying companies had frozen their graduate recruitment programmes. This was a difficult time for me and everyone who graduated. However, luckily I saw an advert for a position with 1Let – I applied and was offered the job. That was 12 years ago and, as the saying goes, I have never looked back.
Why did you join the CLA?
1Let joined the CLA because we wanted to be part of a wider organisation promoting best practice within the industry. While the letting industry in Scotland has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years, when we initially joined CLA, there was little to differentiate agents committed to best practice and those who were not.
What are the benefits of CLA?
There are a whole host of benefits that come with CLA membership. Primarily we are proud to be a member of an organisation that works extremely hard to make the letting industry a better place, giving its members a louder voice as a collective. Support and practical guidance is on hand whenever we need it. We receive regular industry updates and the CLA enews email is genuinely one that I look forward to reading.
What is your biggest challenge?
Consistently keeping on top of customer service. We structure the company so it is best able to provide outstanding customer service. Each property manager has a sensibly sized property portfolio allowing them to have the time they need to build relationships with landlords and tenants and to deal with issues properly. Even with a customer service-focused approach, we often find areas where we could improve – the challenge never ends!
What’s been your worst experience?
Being chased down the road by a tenant who was unhappy about a justifiable deposit deduction!
And your best experience?
Although the business is a property management company, what I love and time and time again provides the most fulfilling experiences is my interactions with people. Whether it be meeting a new landlord for the first time or matching the right tenant with the right property, it is the human side of the job I love the most. Property management is actually a very small part of the job – the real work is people management and forming lasting relationships with clients.
What are your long-term goals?
Growing the business but never at the expense of service! We want to be able to provide more and more really good homes to tenants and work with more like-minded landlords. 1Let is also looking at some exciting new developments – top secret at this stage, but exciting times ahead!
Acknowledgements:
The following article was first printed in the Spring 2020 edition of Landlord Focus Magazine.