Landlord Accreditation
Team Briefing Note - 15
July 2004
SUBJECT - Property Investors Show - 18th 19th 20th June 2004
BACKGROUND
As a result of the success of the Property Investors Show in
London the organiser's, Homebuyers UK, decided for the first time
to launch the show in the North of England. They decided to hold
the event at the G-MEX Centre in Manchester. The organisers
have been running these shows for the past 12 years and the last
2 shows have attracted 7,600 and 10,00 visitors in 2002 / 2003
respectively.
The focus of the event was
to target the landlords and
property investors in the
Northwest area and in
particular within the City of
Salford. It gave us, the
Landlord Accreditation
Team, the opportunity to advise (on a one to one basis) existing
landlords and potential landlords of the benefits of having longterm tenants in their properties. It helped us to promote the
Accreditation Scheme and gain invaluable feedback on improving
existing schemes.
THE EVENT
Following an invitation from Homebuyers UK, Salford City
Council's Landlord Accreditation Team took up the responsibility
of lead authority for directing the 8 participating organisations. We
initially sent out an invite to 38 Local Authorities and organisations
within the North West Area. The response was quite positive and
we had no problem in achieving the 8 required by the show
organisers. At the event we had a dedicated area (or village) with
8 other local authorities sharing a stand 3 metres wide and 2
metres high. It displayed the 8 Local Authority corporate logos.
The cost of the stand was £750 + VAT to each Authority involved
and included a generic statement applicable to Landlord
Accreditation Schemes operating in the North West. The
Statement read;
'Landlord Accreditation Working with Landlords to
Improve standards in the
private
rented
sector,
awarding
official
recognition
for
good
quality, safe and well
managed rented homes
and offering Landlords
support,
advice
and
resources'
We also had a shared web site enquiry form so that investors /
speculators could contact us directly. We had a number of leads
from this, in particular a landlord with a portfolio of over 300
properties. The show organisers produced a 'show guide' with a
shared advert and an individual 75-word article outlining the key
aims and objectives of Landlord Accreditation Schemes, which
was handed out to everyone who attended the show. We also had
an unlimited amount of free tickets for all our landlords and other
stakeholders to meet them at the show.
ACHIEVMENTS
In total the event attracted some 5,750 visitor this year. The
Landlord Accreditation stand attracted a huge amount of interest
with a large number of enquiries at the stand over the 3 days. It
was noted by other neighbouring stands that we were particularly
busy with a large number of people continually in attendance at
the stand. We had 224 Landlords, property investors and
speculators from across the North West who left their details with
us to contact them at a later date with further information. Of
these, 73 enquiries were directly related to properties in the
Salford area. The number of people who came to the stand and
took away our details and leaflets was immeasurable. Comparing
this to an advertisement we placed in the local press last year, at
a cost of around £1,000, we received only a handful of enquiries
and none of them lead to a landlord being signed up. It is clear to
see just how successful our participation in this event has proved
to be.
CONCLUSION
Apart from the direct contact with landlords in the area, we were
able to set up links with other organisations related to private
sector housing. This will allow us to offer more in the way of
advice and support to our existing Landlords as well as ideas for
initiatives to attract new landlords. It also allowed us to increase
our partnership links with other Local Authorities and swap ideas
and talk one to one with them. In terms of new contacts and new
leads the show has proved a resounding success. We will be
contacting the 63 people and organisations from the Salford area
that left us their details with our new incentive for new landlords
and forwarding the information gathered for the other areas to the
respective local authorities.
Looking forward to next years show on the 24th - 25th -26th June
2005, the Landlord Accreditation Team will propose to set up a
working group involving all the local authority's in the North West
area working towards a much more focused approach to the
event. With our knowledge and experience of the event we can
tailor our needs and the needs of the customer with the right
information and guidance.
Salford City Council's Landlord Accreditation Team have been
commended for all their hard work and efforts in putting together a
very successful event. It should also be mentioned that the 8
Local Authorities that took part were very helpful and positive
about the promotion of Landlord Accreditation and that such
schemes in the future are worth the investment and can only
improve.