Covid 19 - Viewings

Since the announcement of the property market reopening Orchards have been working with suppliers, vendors and viewers to ensure safe practices are in place for when we reopen on Monday 18th May.

Simple guidance outlined below will enable us to ensure all parties remain safe, and viewings are able to recommence.

• Maximum time limit of 15 minute for viewings

• Maximum of 3 adults from same household allowed to view – No friends or relatives

• No open houses will be held

• Viewing of Virtual Tours and/or Video Tours prior to physical viewing

• Viewing qualification form must be completed, ensuring the viewer and vendor are comfortable with the practices in place and have not recently, or currently ill.

• Vendors to leave the property or at the very least if not possible to leave will be in the garden

• The vendors agree to wiping all surfaces down before and after the viewing

• Vendors to leave doors open, lights on and windows open.

• Applicant agrees to not touch any surfaces

• Agent to wear gloves and maintain 2m distancing

• Agent to wear mask when indoors, viewers advised of the same.

• Viewer and Agent to wash hands with soap and water (or hand sanitiser if not available) immediately after entering a property.

• No Printed Brochures to be provided at this time.

  As standard all new properties will have a video tour / virtual tour. We are working with our vendors to retrospectively introduce these to our existing marketed properties.

Message to Our Vendors

Dear Our Vendors,

May we start by saying thank you. Thank you to all of the vendors who have taken the time to contact us and to discuss as best we can, the plans for the future.  

If your property has sold – We will be working with you and your buyer to ensure key communication is kept through this period. We are having briefings with all solicitors as to their official guidance on exchanges & completions and so far it seems to be that the advice is for simultaneous exchanges and completions. This does increase the risk, but the idea is that it doesn’t create a situation where someone effectively fails to complete on their sale or purchase when the situation is out of their control and become legally responsible for mounting costs.

For those of you who have exchanged – the main issue has been caused by some removal companies cancelling bookings. Please ensure you contact your removal company at the earliest point you can to confirm they are still going ahead as planned. Solicitors and Banks remain able to complete at this time.

If your property is for sale – Strangely enough, our research from speaking to applicants, and the number of enquiries and new registrations we are receiving are showing that the market doesn’t appear to be slowing, and if anything this time of isolation may increase the demand to move. Having spoken to a number of homeowners they begin to realise that they need to upsize since working from home with two kids all day means they are aware they need more space. Or downsizing because they realise they have worked too hard and for too long to worry about income anymore.

But even if your buyer doesn’t fall in to either category, most people are expecting to see their time spent on apps like Rightmove, Facebook Market Place and local business websites increase as they face this period of isolation.  

We continue to be available by phone and by email Monday to Saturday.

Our best advice during this period is that if your enquiry is urgent to please email team@orchards.co.uk to ensure an available member of the team receives it.

Please continue to call our normal landline number of 01525 40 22 66.

Kindest Regards

The Whole Team at Orchards

Message to our Tenants

Dear Tenants,

First of all I would like to say thank you for your continued dialogue with us. Communication is key and we ask all of you to contact us with any concerns you may have.

Everyone at Orchards fully appreciates the stress and strain you are all under during this time, don’t forget are team comprises of tenants too.

The team are working hard in the background to ensure you get the continued service you require and deserve, but understandably we are going to need you help during this time too.

As of this now;

1. All property inspections are being postponed.

2. To ensure the legal obligations of our landlords are fulfilled any Gas Certificate which are due to expire within in the next two months are being instructed for renewal now. This is essential maintenance, but should you have any concerns at all please let us know. They will only proceed with you permission. Please ensure you contact Gas-Elec if you have any concerns about having the inspection carried out on 01473 827277.

3. For properties currently on the market, we will ask you to clarify your intentions, if you are still able to vacate at the date you had originally planned or do we need to make alternative arrangements with you.

4. Essential maintenance will be the priority for all members of staff here, ensuring boilers, water supplies, electricity etc remain uninterrupted.

Perhaps most importantly for some is the financial struggles that may occur at this time.
We have been struggling to find the best possible way to word this, but the reality is, it’s really rather black and white. Your rent remains legally due, and the last thing we want to see is any tenant end up getting themselves in debt and we stress that you get the financial help required in order to continue to pay your rent. The government has increased the amount of financial support on offer for housing claims and universal credit claims.

Just because your landlord has the term “landlord” they are still the same as you and I, still have the same financial concerns, still trying to find the best way to work during this time in order to pay their bills, a large proportion of our landlords are retired and have put their money into property where pension funds were failing and there was virtually zero return in interest from the banks. These landlords rely heavily on the rent as the income they live off and they too are also very worried.
If you cannot pay the full rent, pay what you can when you can, to help stop the debt from escalating and any outstanding amounts will need to be settled by arrangement once we are through this period if the full rent does not come in.

It also poses a lot of other potential issues from a management point of view such as not having any funds to pay contractors for maintenance which comes out of the rent and of course our own wages, as individuals we are also in a position where we will lose our own income and not be able to pay our own rent. The knock on effect is quite far reaching so we all await for more specifics to be clarified and hope that it provides some reassurance for all of us because at present all parties are naturally left anxious and wondering where we all go from here!

We are hoping however that the government’s announcement on Friday to support employers by covering 80% of the wages of furloughed workers will prevent or limit the number of workers being unpaid at this time.

Further advice and information can be found below.

Government advice - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-support-for-employees-benefit-claimants-and-businesses
Housing Benefit - https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/info/53/benefits/5/housing_benefit
Housing Benefit Central Beds - https://centralbedfordshire.egovhub.net/Org/Production/Apps/HBNewClaim/Launch.aspx
Universal Credit - https://www.universal-credit.service.gov.uk/postcode-checker

We continue to be available by phone and by email Monday to Saturday.

Our best advice during this period is that if your enquiry is urgent to please email team@orchards.co.uk to ensure an available member of the team receives it.

Please continue to call our normal landline number of 01525 40 22 66.

Kindest Regards
The Whole Team at Orchards

Message to our Landlords

Dear Landlords,

May we start by saying thank you.

Thank you to all of the landlords who have taken the time to contact us and to discuss as best we can, the plans for the future.

We have all come to terms with the reality that in this uncertain time, rent arrears may be a possibility, but we want to reassure you that we are encouraging our tenants to work with us in order to minimise the risk of these happening. We are actively helping tenants get the help they need from the government and local councils to minimise arrears.

We will continue to be here for you and your tenant throughout the coming months, however we do all have a part to play in ridding ourselves of this dreadful virus, and it starts with us minimising physical contact.

All members of staff have been given the provisions to continue working securely from home. Our phone lines and emails will continue to operate as normal however we are taking precautions to protect you, your tenant and our staff.

As of this week;

1.       All property inspections are being postponed.

2.       We have contacted the Gas Safe register for information pertaining to the gas safety procedure, at this time they have advised to carry out “investigations” but have said they will respond separately in regards to “inspections”. As soon as we have an update for this we will let you know.

3.       For properties currently on the market, understandably viewings are now not possible. We are actively discussing properties with potential tenants still and providing them with video tours where possible.

4.       Essential maintenance will be the priority for all members of staff here, ensuring boilers, water supplies, electricity etc remain uninterrupted.

5.       Should rent arrears occur we will work with you in order to best resolve them with your tenant.

Our service to you will continue through this difficult period, and if you have any questions or concerns please do call or email us.

We continue to be available by phone and by email Monday to Saturday.

Our best advice during this period is that if your enquiry is urgent to please email team@orchards.co.uk to ensure an available member of the team receives it.

Please continue to call our normal landline number of 01525 40 22 66.

Kindest Regards

The Whole Team at Orchards

The End of a Decade! A Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2020

Every year we like to take a look back over the past 12 months at our areas performance and try to forecast what we believe will happen in the coming year.

This year though is a little bit special for us. It may be the end of a decade, but it is the start of a new era for Orchards Estate Agents, I’ll come on to that more in just a few moments.

A Year in Numbers – Area Averages

Approximately 800 properties Sold STC in the last 12 months with an average asking price of £375,000 in MK45.

The Average days to secure a buyer for South East (Excluding London) is the second lowest it has been since 2012 – 51 Days

The Average days taken to reach completion after becoming Sold STC has increased from 95 days in 2011 to 115 days in 2019

Bedfordshire house prices have on average grown 35.55% in five years up to Q3 in 2019 however Bedfordshire has seen a decrease in values first three quarters of 2019 compared to 2018 with prices down between 1.4% and 2.4%

New Sales Listings for Bedfordshire are 1.4% down compared to the same period in 2018

New Rental prices for Bedfordshire are on average 1.8% higher for one or two bedroom properties then in 2018.

Our Year in Numbers

70% of all new listings sold in 2019

1208 Viewings carried out in 2019 (that’s an average of 11 per property)

An increase of 19% more instructions in 2019 than 2018 whilst the areas has a whole saw a decrease of 1.4%.

The average time taken from sale agreed to completion for a property sold by Orchards is 78 days a whole 37 days faster than the area average.

Managed letting stock increased by 14% when the area average for new instructions was 3.4%

We broke the 200 managed lets target and finished the year on 215!  

This year with the help of our local community we have managed to give back over £304,100 worth of prizes, donations, sponsorships and money off vouchers creating over 175 “winners”

So What Is Next? Onwards and Upwards That’s What We Say!

We want next year to be even bigger than this year, but we can only do that with the local community’s help.

Thinking of Selling or Letting? Call us for a free valuation. They are no obligations and completely free of charge. We will provide you with the best advice at all times, including any thing we believe may benefit you to consider before you put your property on the market, and when the best times are to sell!

Already on the market? Register with us to help you find the house you are looking for. All of our properties are called out to our applicants even before they become published online.

Fancy yourself a writer? We are doubling our magazine distribution from 5,000 houses to 10,000 houses in the new year and are looking for budding writers to provide content. Do you have a passion for saving money or for being thrifty and upcycling? Do you run a business and you want to share information with the local community? Get in touch and help us create the best content!

What’s more, we want to ensure we continue to give back to the local community we love so much. So we are excited to be launching the following initiatives.

Our mentoring scheme for local start-up business including £15,000 worth of funding, office space and one to one mentoring.

A fight against Homelessness. In 2020, working with our landlords, investment buyers and other local charities we are striving to prevent homelessness. We want to create better communication channels with local government in order to make it easier for people on benefits to be able to let property, we are working with providers to find alternatives to 5 week deposits to enable more people to afford to move and perhaps most importantly we are going to be putting more man hours in to helping the local communities and charities by volunteering at local events, foodbank and more.

Everyone at Orchards wishes you a great 2020 and we thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Should you have any questions, want to help on our new initiatives, or are just thinking of selling or letting in the area call us on 01525 40 22 66.

Kind Regards

Adam Barker

Director

Orchards

OUR PRIZES THIS YEAR

£300,000 of Money off vouchers                        

£105 to British Legion                               

74 Easter Eggs

£60 of Smyths Vouchers                                         

52 Bottles of Cava                                

31 Bags of Pick n Mix

5 Lunches from Ampthill Nutrition Kitchen       

5 Chocolate Hampers                 

4 Tickets to Woburn Safari Park

4 Tickets to Go Ape                                                

2 Tickets to Lego Land  

2 Tickets to Amp Rocks

Meal for Two at the White Hart                            

1 Zumba Class

Body Composition Scan

1 Cut & Blow Dry                                                

1 Set of Gel Nails                      

Russel Lower PTA Ball Sponsorship

Winner of the Best Agent Guides Excellent award for Sales and Lettings (Top 10% of Agents in the country)

The Tenant Fee Ban

The Tenant Fees Bill sets out the government’s approach to banning letting fees for tenants.

Ultimately there are no fees that can be charged to the tenant, nor can the tenant be forced to sign up to any third party providers.

The key measures of the bill include:

• Security deposits must not exceed the equivalent of five weeks' rent.

• Holding deposits will be capped at no more than one week’s rent. The Bill also sets out the proposed requirements on landlords and agents to return a holding deposit to a tenant within 28 days

• A fine of £5,000 for an initial breach of the ban with a criminal offence where a person has been fined or convicted of the same offence within the last 5 years. Financial penalties of up to £30,000 can be issued as an alternative to prosecution

• Trading Standards will enforce the ban and will make provisions for tenants to be able to recover unlawfully charged fees via the First-tier Tribunal

• Landlords are prevented from recovering possession of their property via the section 21 until they have repaid any unlawfully charged fees

• Enabling the appointment of a lead enforcement authority in the lettings sector

• The Consumer Rights Act 2015 will be amended to specify that the letting agent transparency requirements should apply to property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla

• Local authorities will be able to ring-fence any money raised for future local housing enforcement

Alongside rent and deposits, agents and landlords will only be permitted to charge tenants fees associated with:

• A change or early termination of a tenancy when requested by the tenant

• Utilities, communication services and Council Tax

• Payments arising from a default by the tenant such as replacing lost keys.

What does this mean to me?

Ultimately as landlords you are unable to charge extra security deposits for the likes of pets or poor credit histories.

Landlords also will need to be aware that due to there being less deposit held ultimately there will be less monies available for reparations or arrears.

As such we would recommend considering investing in some type of rent guarantee insurance or legal cover.

Orchards offer additional legal cover for £10 per month. Call for more details 01525 40 22 66