The problem is now an opportunity!

Currently the level of transactions within residential sales is very subdued and even if the market was more buoyant it is true that sales goes up and down continuously presenting an agency with very real cash flow issues. Although perhaps the opportunity within lettings to make a "fast buck" may not be there, the real advantage is that revenues are consistent and allow a business to grow steadily without all the cyclical ups and downs experienced by residential sales.

Many estate agents are put off entering lettings due to the many complications and compliance issues associated with this market yet the fundamental aspects of introducing vendors (landlords) and applicants (tenants) are basically the same. The overheads like premises and staff already exist so why not consider supplementing income from sales with a steady revenue stream from lettings?

The difficulty of course is that you may not have the skills or the manpower to handle the complex "back office" aspects associated with lettings and this fact is often enough to put many estate agents off. Now, however, with the internet it is possible for you to do the deals (matching tenants to landlords) in-house with a professional accounts and management service being provided by a skilled third party without your customers even knowing. The perfect solution!

Aspasia and our partners Touchstone have been making this possible for a number of customers over many years so this is nothing new - it is not a gamble. What we have now done, however, is to package these services together with other offerings from another long standing partner, Nita Nicola, into a ready made solution for residential estate agents wishing to enter the lettings market. Don't be fooled by competitors offering a bureau service, without an internet based product they can't hope to offer a solution where both parties can see exactly what the other is doing and where double entry of data is not necessary.

So what exactly are we offering?

For a one off initial investment of £5K we and our partners will set up everything for you and leave you ready to start trading as a lettings agency. We will jointly.....

• Provide you with the necessary Aspasia software and set up your own unique database available over the internet.
• Configure the database with everything like logos, detail sheets and all the other necessary information that is appropriate for you.
• Provide you with a complete set of over 90 necessary documents installed into your own database and configured to suit your stationery layouts.
• Set up all the background accounting and management facilities you require like bank accounts, dedicated telephone lines, etc.
• Give you and your staff the appropriate basic training in terms of what you need to know about the lettings business.
• Give you and your staff basic training in the use of the Aspasia software.

Thereafter you will have the following ongoing costs which should be financed out of agency commission income....

• Touchstone will charge you £50 per tenancy per month for providing you with all the back office accountancy and property management services associated with a fully managed let. All income over the £50 per month per property is yours.
• You will need to pay a rental charge of £380 per month for the Aspasia software and appropriate support. This charge covers everything including data backup and is a necessary minimum charge due to our high infrastructure and Oracle licensing costs. The good news is that it represents a charge for 7 lettings users and/or 10 sales users whichever you prefer. If you wish you can use Aspasia additionally as your software for sales without incurring any additional cost provided you don't exceed the total user count. An added advantage is that everything goes into the same database and you can have lifetime histories of people and properties irrespective of whether they are sales or lettings. Please see elsewhere on this site for all the advantages Aspasia can bring you.

Please see our income projections to help you decide whether this packaged solution is something that could be right for you.

Is there anyone to hold my hand thereafter if I need it?

Yes of course. Not only will you have the ongoing inbuilt support from Touchstone and Aspasia but our other partner Nita Nicola is one of the most respected experts in the industry and she has a whole range of optional extras should you need them. Please see her page on this site for more information.

To summarise

We believe this is the most comprehensive and well thought out package of its type in the market. The methodology has been tested over a number of years and carries little or no risk. Provided you meet the very modest minimum number of deals each year (shown on our income projections page) you can't lose your modest investment. The likelihood is that you can have a very useful additional revenue stream very quickly to help smooth out the fluctuations inherent in residential sales activity. Please see the navigation bar on the left of the screen for more information about Aspasia and our other partners associated with this offering. Alternatively you can click on the links here to learn more about Touchstone, Nita Nicola, documents, income projections or press releases.