The GOOD Landlords Campaign

Please leave a comment below if you think “The GOOD Landlords Campaign” is a good idea.

One of my employees has had to move her family three times in two years because her landlords wanted to move back in or sell their property. She wasn’t told this when she rented the property and certainly would have looked elsewhere if she had know this was a possibility.

I fully appreciate that circumstances can easily change and I wouldn’t advocate that either landlords or tenants enter long term tenancy agreements. Financial circumstances can change very quickly for anybody due to death, new relationships, break ups of relationships, employment etc. so flexibility and trust is key. I offer a 6 month tenancy to all new tenants but many of them continue to rent the same property for years and will vouch for me and confirm that I fix issues quickly. Landlords who intend to sell a property or move back into it don’t have such a pedigree to shout about and will not, therefore, be in the same position as me to get such testimonials.

I’m thinking about starting a GOOD Landlords Campaign where tenants can leave positive testimonials for landlords on profiles they could set up here on Property118.com

Don’t you think GOOD landlords should be recognised? I’m talking about those who fix problems quickly and have a reputation for providing quality long term accommodation to quality tenants who don’t want the hassle and expense of constantly being moved on.

What I have in mind is to create a facility for good landlords to have their own profile here on Property118.com whereby they can ask tenants to leave positive testimonials for them. Maybe it will even expand into being a full social network?

This will obviously cost time and money to set up. I’m not asking anybody to pay for it though so you can put your credit cards and cheque books away. I have made a promise that I intend to stick to – this website will NEVER charge landlords for its services. It will make its money from advertising.  However, I will only commission the development of this technology if I get a minimum of 100 expressions of interest in the comments section below.

This will not be a Review Website and landlords will have the right to approve or discard all comments before they are published onto their profiles. This will prevent defamatory comments from spiteful trouble makers being shown to the world. I don’t think a review website is even necessary, what tenants really want to know is that they will have a quality property and the ability to stay in it long term if they pay their rent and respect their tenancy. They also want to know that their landlord is going to fix any problems quickly and not to sell up just as they get settled. If you are a landlord who fits this criteria, wouldn’t you want tenants to know about it? Wouldn’t you like to be able to differentiate yourself?

If such a Directory is commissioned it will work very much along the lines of how our Property Services Directory. Protection is built in to minimise the risk of the creation of fake testimonials, they would be date and time stamped and all email addresses and IP addresses would be monitored.

I am obviously hoping that thousands of landlords will register their interest by adding a comment below and that Landlord Associations, Local Councils and Property Networks will also support this initiative by promoting its existence. Maybe there is a mortgage lender, an insurance company or a property portal that would like to sponsor it? Perhaps a housing charity would like to affiliate itself with GOOD landlords as opposed to focussing only on vilifying landlords with “Rogue Landlords Campaigns”.

My longer term vision is that GOOD Landlords will be able to point prospective new tenants to their Property118.com profiles to demonstrate their integrity and professionalism. A good landlord may have just one property or a large portfolio. Size doesn’t matter, transparency does! New tenants will be able to see what existing and previous tenants have written and may even be able to contact them for independent verification. Such a Directory would enable tenants to identify those landlords who are in this business for the right reasons and the long term.

Profiles will allow landlords to add a business description so that they can share information about their time in business, their long term strategy for property ownership, their lettings and maintenance policy etc.

Hopefully the press will pick on on this as it gathers momentum.

How do you see this adding value to your business and to tenants and are there any other features you would find helpful?

Would you ask your tenants to leave you a testimonial and do you think they would? I know mine would, I have asked them 🙂

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