We are property professionals from a long established estate agency that sells and rents out all kinds of real estate.
For a very long time now perspective Tenants have asked us if we do letting for shorter periods than 12 months and like other agents we have to say sorry that we don't. "But why not", they demand. The reason is that a Landlord pays a Tenant finders fee to the Agent and as it is close to a month's rent you can understand that they only want to pay this once a year. This is due to the work involved in marketing a property for let, i.e. Arranging for an EPC, taking photographs, writing the property up on agency software and placing it online with various websites, preparing brochures, putting up a To Let sign, advising the Landlords on their responsibilities, doing viewings, processing and credit checking applicants, preparing a lease and the pre-described information for holding the deposit. So it simply doesn't make financial sense for a Landlord to rent out his property short term.
This is the reason why short term Tenants are left with only a few options such as stay with the in-laws (Hello 😬), or Hotels/B&Bs which can end up becoming an expensive holiday preventing having that real holiday!
To fill this market void we have created Stop Gap Homes to give you an additional option from the expensive Hotel and B & B serviced options. After all these serviced options are only for the holiday maker or for really short term letting like days or weeks. Short term Tenants are just seeking a temporary home for 3 months plus and really don't mind doing their washing and ironing as per usual as long as they don't have to pay over the odds.
It's strange to be given a remit to sell someone's house and when you get them a cash offer of the asking price they turn around and say they cannot possibly accept it as they have nowhere to go to. Seriously this happens more often than you would think. So rather than potentially lose the Purchaser by telling them the Vendor is not ready for selling and be faced with ridicule like, and I quote "do they want to sell their house or not?" or "why did they put their house on the market?" the Vendor finally has Stop Gap Homes.
Stop Gap Homes was conceived through the above phenomenon happening time after time. Also from people wanting to renovate their own property but not wanting to live there whilst doing so, professional trainers needing a place to stay for 3-6 months, people moving back home from working abroad and needing time to buy or decide where they want to live etc.
Over a year there can be quiet periods where an agency can have a lot of properties to sell or rent with not many Buyers or Tenants. We asked our Vendors and Landlords during this quiet time if they would consider listing their property with Stop Gap Homes who do short term letting. The response from many of them was good and we were delighted to offer our Clients an income during the quiet time and in doing so provided an option for the short term Tenant.
More and more Landlords are now listing with Stop Gap Homes and believing in our ability to place good professional Tenants within their properties. After all, people selling their homes and the Tenants you have with short term rentals are mostly professional people. We will always have more Tenants than Landlords for this short term market but at least we are helping to fill a void in the marketplace by offering a more affordable solution.
