Inspired by the 20 marketing tips from Belvoir Lettings at PropertyOwl’s place.

Here is what we would add to that list:

The 1st photo has to stand out!

There are tons of ads renters have to go through when searching for the right property. If my experienced head is usually literally spinning after an hour of intensive browsing - just imagine the pain new Londoners have to go through. A good first photo would make the search so much more enjoyable but it’s not the only reason why more attention should be paid on that first photo.

You might think that the address is enough to make the renter open your ad but is it true when it comes to those who know nothing about London? Or those who speak very little English? This group is very sensitive to that first photo on the long list of properties.

Take time to think about how to make the first photo so good, that it works like banner that says - LOOK AT ME! It will pay off, mark my words.

Also, changing the first photo after it has been hanging up for too long, could a good idea as well, as it might attract a click from someone who has dismissed the ad before.

The last request would be - please pay attention to details. If there is absolutely nothing else to show, just typical rooms and furniture, then maybe you can find a detail that would intrigue us to open the ad.

A few thoughts on what impact a not so good first photo would have:

POOR QUALITY
I have noticed that at some point, when browsing the listings, I would start ignoring properties that have the first photo in very bad quality (blurry, verticals off, odd colours). What this says to me is that no-one really cares about the property. Not now, and probably not after I move in…

NO PHOTO
Ads with no photo belong to the 20th century. Those ads spell “trouble”. Either the apartment is not ready, the agent has not seen it, it’s in a really bad condition, etc.

COMPANY LOGO AS PHOTO
Equals to no photo. Pass!

DIDN’T I JUST LOOK AT THIS?
Photo of the red brick building exterior, empty room, just some room with vanilla-coloured walls - the property can go unnoticed if I don’t know the address.

COPY-PASTE
There is this great apartment for rent at Park Street in Mayfair, which some 3 agents are advertising. All 3 first photos in the list have been taken from the same angle. Nice pictures but one of them could do better! Right now it is just to obvious that there are many agents advertising the same property, and noone seems to bother with marketing although it is quite an expensive apartment.

Guess why I would open all these 3 ads below, as listed in Globrix.

1. Great view. I am intrigued to see more.
2. Looks very interesting, even if it is not to my taste. I want to have a closer look at the details. If there was a photo of the exterior, I would have opened it maybe at a 50/50 chance.
3. Interesting angle of the entrance. Obviously they know how to point out the good points, and I wonder how they present the interior.

In general I would have to say that the situation is not too bad with the first photos, and I’m not complaining too much. It’s just that there’s so much unused potential:)

Say you’re renting a room in a flat, where at some point one of the tenants is moving out. The landlord might let you choose your new flatmate, provided you find him/her yourself. Where should you advertise the room?

This question was actually asked in LandlordZone forum but we’ll ask the same question for London specifically:

Which website is best to advertise a room to let in London?

What would you recommend and why?

Here is the list of websites that we know of:
EasyRoommate.com Lots of latmates, flatshares
FlatmateClick.co.uk Good selection of flatmates & flatshares
Gumtree Clasifieds site. Post room wanted or room available
Live Simply Listings from private landlords only
MoveFlat.co.uk Flatshares
Spareroom.co.uk Flat- & houseshares, flat- & roommates

We came across this great niche site, which all the pet owners should love - PetFriendlyRentals.co.uk lists long term and holiday rentals in UK, where our small or big, furry or feathery friends, are welcome. The website is farely new but since advertising long term rentals is for free, they’ll probably have more London ads in the future as the word spreads.

I don’t think I ever saw the option of searching for a horse-friendly property on any other website before, although they get even more specific than that. For example, the landlord who says OK to dogs in the property, can choose which breeds are not allowed.

Should you want to take your pet along on a vacation or a short stay somewhere in the UK - the holiday accommodation search will be of great help.

Jump to PetFriendlyRentals.co.uk

And it isn’t just a nose-job!

What’s changed? From Rightmove.co.uk:

Improved search

* Use maps to find your location
* Search for detached, semi-detached and terraced houses
* Find properties specifically with parking or a garden
* Filter for auction, “part buy, part rent”, retirement properties and more
* See your search results simplified (number of properties with gardens / parking etc)

New ‘myRightmove’

* myRightmove is now your one-stop shop for everything Rightmove. See your saved properties, manage email alerts and more in one place.
* Stay signed in between visits to the site.

Technology

* Updated technology. More features to come in 2009.

Jump to Rightmove to test it out.

One way to find out about the new rentals that come to the market, is to subscribe to RSS feeds. This means that you can order the offers to a special reader software, which you can then check for updates whenever you like.

Quite a few London letting agents have started to provide feeds of the flats and houses they offer on their website. We recommend this option to those of you who don’t like receiving offers by E-mail. I must say that of those 5-6 rental update lists that are sent to me during the day - I rarely look at them before deleting.

Using Google Reader suits me personally much better - it’s so much more comfortable than the HTML letter in my Outlook inbox. The only downside with RSS is that you can usually filter the offers by areas only, not by the number of rooms or by any other specification. So using the reader can be a bit time consuming, be warned. But it is ideal if you are unsure about what you want to rent. Some sites, like Primelocation.com, do allow you to refine the feed.

Here is a screen capture of estate agent Foxtons‘ listing in my reader:

If you want to subscribe to RSS feeds from Foxtons - just pick an area, and then look for this sign on the right side of the listings’ page. Click on it to subscribe.

Here is our small collection of RSS feeds for London rentals. Click on them to subscribe:

Belgravia properties for rent by Foxtons
Camden properties for rent by Foxtons
Clerkenwell properties for rent by Winkworth
Crouch End properties for rent by Winkworth
Hampstead AND surrounding areas properties for rent by Foxtons
Islington properties for rent by Winkworth
Kensington properties for rent by Winkworth
Knightsbridge & Chelsea properties for rent by Winkworth
London latest properties for rent by Knight Frank
Notting Hill properties for rent by Winkworth
Paddington and Bayswater properties for rent by Winkworth
Pimlico & Westminster properties for rent by Winkworth
Shoreditch properties for rent by Winkworth
South Kensington properties for rent by Winkworth
St James Park properties for rent in Primelocation.com
St John’s Wood properties for rent by Winkworth
West End W1, WC1, WC2 properties for rent by Winkworth
Willesden Green properties for rent by Winkworth

Which way do you prefer to get listing updates? Please vote in the POLL section on the right hand side of the page!

Time to reveal the results for the poll that we posted early in October!

Our question was: Which property website do YOU think London tenants should use for searching rental flats and houses from estate agents?

We hear it’s wise to search from more than just one website these days - some agents use only Globrix, some only FindaProperty.com.

With that poll we were hoping to clarify which ones are the best to use today, in order to avoid wasting time on sites that are, for example, still in very early stages of development or maybe don’t have as much choice of rentals.

So here are the top 3 property websites that our readers suggested:

1. Primelocation.com 43 votes
2. FindaProperty.com 39 votes
3. Globrix 8 votes

These are the 3 websites renters should use or start with when looking to rent an apartment or house in London (from an agent). The rest of the results can be found here.

While I understand that most of the voters must have been representing one or the other website nominated - the result matches our current preferences. Obviously they are working hard on informing the end users!

Here are some comments from the people behind the websites:

Poppy Dinsey said:

Yes, I am completely biased because I work at Globrix…but I spend a lot of time on all of these property sites and as a renter in London I genuinely think Globrix is the best for would-be London tenants.

The main reason I think Globrix is better is that you get the best picture of what’s available, we’ve got fantastic market coverage of London rentals. Then of course there’s the fact you can search by specific road names and specific key features…balcony, designer kitchen, roof terrace etc. You get direct access to the letting agent, no annoying forms that keep you stuck on Globrix forever. And of course, you can search by ‘freshness’, in the fast moving London rentals market, knowing that an ad is less than a week old is important to many searchers. On so many of the incumbent portals, you can be looking at rental ads that were filled with tenants months ago.

Michael O’Flynn said:

In reply to Poppy above, think I should point out that:

1. Here on FindaProperty.com we have had a recency filter on our search for some years now - people searching for London rentals (and we have massively comprehensive coverage - over 55,000 properties advertised at present) can filter by last 24 hours, last 3 days, last week, last month.

2. We have full contact details of agents on the site … email addresses and telephone numbers. Globrix don’t. They send you out to the agents’ sites so you then have to waste time navigating lots of differently designed sites to find these details/register with agent etc …

3. We don’t have ‘annoying forms’ - to register (which you don’t need to do to use the site) you only need to add an email address, name and password.

4. You can register with us to have email alerts matching your requirements delivered direct to your inbox - which really is useful in the fast moving London rentals market

It’ll be interesting to see how the poll results pan out!

Thanks
Michael O’Flynn

Ben said:

In order to justify which website to use for your rentals, if you are in the market to find a rental I would use as many as i can - spending 10 minutes on each and saving your contacts and contacting them by email or phone - all these websites survive by you looking at them and more importanly contcating them via the websites.. try and remember this when looking at portals. DOnt just call them direct without respecting the portals business.

In terms of choise - Findaproperty & Primelocation is a great start to look for rentals - one for the whole general market - and Primelocation maybe listing properties of a special nature mid to high end renters…

Good luck in your search - Long live the portals..

for now the numbers speak for themselves

Ben.

Raj Doofitz said:

The choice between Primelocation and Findaproperty is the only one the searcher need to make, and that is relative to their needs. Primelocation has 400,000 properties and more than 100,000 international properties which is great for the luxury property searches or investment property potentials or quality agents to secure rental accommodations, whereas the FAP site tend to be more affordable properties. So I suppose it depends on the user’s needs.

Both sites are easy to use and offer Email Alert services to make your search a lot easier, make the sites work for you whilst you are of doing something more pleasurable like shopping for furniture for your new pad…

Unless you have just landed in the UK, you probably know that all the tenancies that started on or after the 1st of October 2008, have to have an Energy Performance Certificate. The EPC shows two things – the Energy Efficiency Rating (relating to running costs) and the Environmental Impact Rating (relating to the carbon dioxide emissions) of a dwelling. Each rating is shown on an A–G rating scale similar to those used for fridges and other electrical appliances.

It is not mandatory for the landlord or agent to put the scores or graphs in the online advertisements of residential rentals but thankfully the bigger estate agents have already started doing it.

Property agent Knight Frank adds a “View EPC Graph” button in the rental listings on their website.

Missing EPC scores will lead tenants thinking that:

a) there is no certificate - without which the tenancy agreement cannot be signed;
b) the agent or landlord doesn’t care - which probably means they are not so good at managing the property either;
c) the score is very low - running costs very high.

Many prospective tenants will put those non-transparent offers aside until they have seen everything else available.

Suggested reading: Energy performance certificates for dwellings in the social and private rented sectors, A guide for landlords (*pdf)

The new property website everybody has been talking about since the end of August is finally open to the public. PropertyLive.co.uk is the only property search site that’s regulated, protected and run by a professional body of fully accredited agents (NFOPP).

It has been a very painful birth, with endless postponements of the launch. But the long wait has also kept everybody on toes, and the site has gotten free advertising in the media for almost two months now.

Here are some of our thoughts on the beta version.

We like the design
So much better than what we expected. Bright colours, fresh faces - the vibe is so positive that we don’t even want to complain about the fact that there are only 7 London rental properties available on the site at the moment:)

Quick access to browsing
With just a little typing (area, address or postcode) and 1 click we are browsing the listings. No registration needed.

Easy-to-the-eye listing layout
Nice and simple. We like the tab-system - maps, floorplans and EPC’s will be on different sheets.

Well done, Hurford Salvi Carr!
There are only 7 rentals here on the day of the launch, and they’re all by an estate agent Hurford Salvi Carr. Talk about a good exposure!

Anything missing?

London Rentals
We understand that it will take some time before we can actually use the site. The 13 000 agents are said to have about 200 000 UK properties ready to go on but will start by loading 50 000 in the beginning. There are only 7 London rentals on the site at the moment.

A Blog?
We need something that says that this site is alive and well. Something else has to be boiling there besides the listings!

The NFOPP chief Peter Bolton King probably hasn’t had a good night sleep since … knows when. I can just imagine how impatient agents have been. The delays in website development are quite common though, so we tenants don’t really care that it has taken more time. Besides - it’s not like that site is ever going to be ready - a good website today is constantly growing and changing.

Should other property websites be trembling? We highly doubt that the agents would put their eggs in just one basket. You never know what the competitors will come up with next!

PropertyLive.co.uk is up!

We are off to explore!

Nestoria announced teaming up with innovative local reviews site Qype to begin showing property searchers data about local pubs, nightlife, free time activities and local services.

If you haven’t used Nestoria before then just insert the postcode you are interested in and you’ll see the map on the right of the search results. Click on Nightlife to see where to get a drink around that area.

This is a nice surprise - the popular website for rooms and flatmates SpareRoom.co.uk has their own channel on YouTube - SpareRoom TV. They’ve got videos of available flatshares, people who are looking for accommodation, and even a few overviews of the Speed Flatmating events.

Video of a newly renovated 2 double-bedroom apartment in Kensington Olympia, London W14.

This is the screenshot of the ad on their website for the same apartment. If there is a video available, there is a link to it in the listing as well (I’ve circled it out).

Jump to SpareRoom TV
Jump to SpareRoom.co.uk

Estate agent Hamptons International has a special place on their website for high quality/excellent value lettings across London - Hot Property - London Lettings.

The following list has just been taken out of the oven - enjoy it while it’s hot!

Most viewed rental properties in FindaProperty.com in October 1-16.

Click on the address to see the ads!

These guys really are marketing geniuses.

Do you already know who it is? Click here to find out!

I really like the first impression of PropertyLive - great layout, clean colours, lot’s of good quality images.

What I don’t understand is - why put up something that’s not working? The search result is an error note, and don’t even bother to register!

Don’t be so impatient, dear agents! We’re willing to wait for a proper thing.