Confessions of a Property Manager

Holiday Rentals - Maintenance problems during peak season

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:04:21 GMT

August is the peak season for holiday makers and maintenance problems. Full occupancy and same day changeovers mean maximum rental weeks booked and continuous use of appliances. Things break down!

Top of the list is air conditioning!
With sweltering temperatures of up to 38 holidaymakers flock to Spain for the sun, however although they like to bake in it for most of the day they want the apartment nice and cool. Most leave the aircon on for most of the time so with continuous use either the gas runs out and then the units just blow air or another favourite is that you will get leaks from the indoor units due to the build up of condensation and/or blocked drainage pipes.

Can it be prevented? - not always but a service before the season is advisable to make sure the gas levels are right and if the filters are cleaned the unit will work better. You can also check beneath the indoor units for leaks, if the unit is above the tiles in the bathroom usually you will notice damp patches appearing. If a drainage pipe is blocked the units can leak a lot of water which can sometimes be mis-diagnosed as flooding from an upstairs apartment so it is important to investigate both options.

Consequences - if the air conditioning is not working phone a good engineer as soon as possible! During peak season you may not be able to get an engineer the same day so if you can get in quick you reduce the time your guests are without air con. Guests will complain about the absence of this, if the problem persists and they spend many hot, uncomfortable nights in an apartment which was advertised with air con you may have "compensation" issues . So deal with this as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Remember the hotter it is outside the more the air con system has to work inside so advise your guests to close all doors and windows if they have the unit on!!

Late Deals and Discounts

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:12:15 GMT

Last week we had an apartment rented out via the owner where the guests left it in a real mess. She had given a couple a good discount as it was a late booking and there were only two of them. When the cleaner went in, every bed had been slept in, there were noughts and crosses drawn with greasy fingers on the headboards, pillows on the sofa, smears all over the glass dining table and a bottle of vinegar left in the middle of the bathroom?.

A lot more than two people had stayed there! So if you are considering discounts for couples just be careful, don't give too much of a cheap deal, if you do, make sure you take a deposit and have the place checked over before you return it.

These people broke the parasol, had left it really messy and now the owner is concerned about the keys so yesterday Joy had to meet the locksmith to change the locks – 75 euros. So when you cost out the extra cleaning, replacing the parasol and changing the locks was it really worth the rental?

Remember not everyone will respect your property or the fact that you have given them a late deal. It is a shame that people abuse late offers and discounts.

Needless to say the said guest will not be invited back to that apartment!

Property Management 24/7

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:03:27 GMT

I never realised when I fell into this job that it would mean that you couldn’t have a day off! At the moment work is intense due to last minute rentals for July. Luckily August is now fully booked except perhaps the last few days so it means that we can get everything booked in.

Our “full steam ahead” will start on 26^th July when we have 6 meet and greets to do in the same day. There is a party of Norwegians coming down - at last count there is about 18 of them going to various apartments so that will be fun! We also have a very busy day on 9^th August with 6 same day changeovers and another 3 apartments coming in the next day.

My mother has found an apartment she likes so she is moving out after 2 ½ years with us. The apartment is nice but there are a few repairs to deal with and a great deal of cleaning to do. I still wonder how it is that every new “long term” apartment we visit has numerous light bulbs out. Do people move about in the dark? Every bulb in the living room was out, how do people live like that? Do they live by candle light because it is too much hassle to change a bulb?

I hate moving and I hate moving in June/July even more – we did one trip today with stuff and the sweat was dripping off me – it is too hot to move but as work is an every day occurrence and people email for apartments daily! We have to fit moving around work. We have to take calls and deal with issues as we move furniture, cases and boxes from one place to another. Although Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest I have spent the morning catching up with emails then moving furniture.

The good news is that when Joy moves out I will have a spare room so everyone is having a move around so I can have a room as an office! Yippeee!!!! I won’t know myself, no more screaming at the children to stop putting their stuff on my desk, no more paperwork covering the dining room table. No more running from room to room to hide from them when I need to take an important call. I can have a proper office set up and the first thing I will do is put a lock on the door!!

Rental Enquiries, don't loose that enquiry pass it on!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:40:36 GMT

You are probably finding that most of your summer weeks are now booked or you only have a few gaps left to fill. The most popular August weeks have gone and maybe you just need to fill some July weeks.

Whatever your calendar says, if you are still receiving enquiries for the summer which you can't accommodate remember to pass it on. For maximum rentals it is a good idea to have a few people you can pass over enquiries to which is also reciprocated. That way you have more chance of filling odd weeks.

If you haven’t stipulated Saturday – Saturday changeovers and are being more flexible sometimes it can be difficult to get the right dates booked to avoid awful 6 day gaps. The more enquiries coming you way the more likely you are of filling them – simple.

So if there are others in your complex doing the same then see if you can set up some sort of system where you can liaise with each other and fill those remaining weeks.

I am now having problems accommodating August bookings, it seems the beginning two weeks of August are always the most popular.

It is a while since my last blog and the reason being is that June has proven to be the month for last minute bookings – although this is good it is more intense as we have to organise everything at the last minute!

My first Spanish guests who left on Saturday were great, they left the apartment in a very clean state and vacuumed the entire apartment. The dog was a breed of husky which seemed to moult everywhere! And although they had done a good job there was still dog hair around but it gathered together so for all the world the cleaners thought there had been a sheep in the apartment!!

Reservado

Wed, 28 May 2008 16:30:26 GMT

This is the first year that I have actually managed to do bookings in Spanish! I have now took three bookings and I have to say in comparison to the English they take a lot of convincing that you are not some rouge individual scheming to take their money. Each booking has taken over 20 emails to convince them that I will have the apartment there for them. It does make me wonder though why they enquired in the first place if they are that sceptical?

I have given them all my legal requirements, my husbands work details in fact they know more about my family than my own doctor does. I have even emailed them the bank receipts for the deposits. I have had to meet them half way on the balance though as they insist on bringing cash on arrival. I suppose it stands out more because 90% of my UK bookings pay both deposits and balances into the bank without a second thought.

My latest booking is a lady called Ana, she phoned me up and I managed to decipher her warped speed Spanish and get the details, all was going well until she mentioned “perro” my brain was so into Spanish rental words I was completely taken aback and couldn’t make out what she was saying. Luckily she knew the word “dog”

I thought which owner will allow a dog into an apartment – I asked how big the dog was – 15kg (I have no idea whether she will come with a tall skinny dog or a little fat dog!) Luckily I have a Norwegian owner who will take anything – she packs her own bookings in like sardines. I emailed her to find out if she wanted to take the booking and her reply was

“I think that dog will not eat other things than his own food. Please do help her and the dog!”

So that was that – Ana will arrive in a couple of weeks with her dog and she will be my first Spanish guest to come – I have had all my driving instructions translated into Spanish and sent them to her, she is driving down from Madrid so I have sent her the instructions to pick up the road from Malaga. I will let you know how my meet and greet goes in due course.

All good practice for my Spanish!

Maintenance - Boilers!

Mon, 26 May 2008 21:02:25 GMT

Now the season is really starting and the apartments are filling up the maintenance call outs start. I have been so busy lately with the rental side - it seems that late deals are the thing this year and everyone is booking last minute. Great for them - intense for me as you have to get everything prepared and cleaners organised in one go. No sooner are they in and the perfectly fine apartment seems to fall to bits!

We had some guests arrive last Wednesday, the apartment was cleaned the day before, everything fine, they got in ok but that night I had several calls on my mobile. It was around 8pm and I was trying to get the children to bed and the phone kept ringing. Once I managed to get downstairs I had three missed calls in about 5 minutes. I returned the call and it was guests saying they had no hot water, they were really unhappy. My husband was trying his best to get out in time for the football match but I said I had to pop out because the boiler was in a locked cupboard (owner has his personal stuff in there) so I couldn't ask them to check anything but had to go there to see for myself.

I got there within 20 minutes of her call. The lady of the group was really "cheesed" off so to speak, "they had paid for an apartment and there was no hot water - it wasn't on etc etc" I explained that it was cleaned the day before and everything had been fine so until we could check the boiler I couldn't do much. She had a right attitude! We checked the plug of the boiler which was fine and there was nothing obvious so called our "boiler" guy and he said he would be there first thing in the morning 09.30am. I apologised that she was without water but these things happen to apartments and someone would be out asap to fix it. It was fixed first thing the morning of the next day - the thermostat had gone. I thought that wasn't bad going - but the guests just thought it shouldn't have happened. How can you possibly control appliances?

Today we had a call from a long term tennant really fed up as the boiler was heating up then cutting out. It is a gas boiler and they tend to cut out if the temperature gets to hot. She has been going through a gas bottle every 2 weeks which I though was quite a lot. We have already had someone down to look at it so in the end we called the owners to see if they would agree to changing it to an electric one. They agreed - the prospect of an unhappy tennant and call out charges to check why the boiler wasn't working well convinced them.  This property is relatively new - why they put gas boilers in is beyond me, normally the newer properties all have electric ones. A lot of people in this complex had already changed them.

So it seems this week is the week of the boilers - last week is we had to change a dishwasher - all go, go, go!