Why Choose Quay?

Background

Quay’s sister company, Quay Holidays was set up in 2006 to manage holiday letting properties throughout Poole and Bournemouth. It quickly established a solid reputation as a hands-on manager with a great team of directly-employed staff. When holiday-let clients wanted to switch to long lettings over the winter they had to go to other agents, but what they really wanted was a one-stop service that could offer both. Our 2010 move to purpose-built premises in Orchard Plaza allowed us to do just that. Today, Quay lets and manages 140 holiday-lets and over 200 long-let properties, and offers tenant-find only services to many more landlords. We maintain the same 7-day-a-week service and attention to detail that holiday letting demands, combined with the systems, the personnel and the know-how to offer a comprehensive residential lettings service.

Experienced and Qualified

Quay Living is Regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). It is a member of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), and a member of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). We use the Deposit Protection Service (DPS) to protect all our residential tenants’ deposits, and adhere to the independent Property Redress Scheme in the unlikely event of a dispute.

Our two partners are each fully qualified in the business – one as a chartered surveyor of over 30 years standing, and the other a fully qualified member of ARLA. Quay’s letting team have a further 30 years’ experience in residential sales and lettings.

It can be difficult for private landlords to keep up with the ever-changing requirements of letting legislation and penalties for non-compliance grow ever more onerous. Whether it’s gas safety certificates, electrical tests or tenant notices, it is terribly important to keep fully up-to date with the law, and Quay’s qualified staff are vital in ensuring landlords’ properties comply. In addition, our Alto computer software system ensures that no key dates are forgotten, and rents are always paid promptly.

Maximising rents, minimising voids

Being in the market every day ensures we are best placed to know the highest rent you can reasonably achieve for your rental investment. This is vital – if you hold out for too much, you could be looking at a prolonged void, council tax and utility charges. If you ask too little, you will be failing to maximise your investment returns. We can advise how to present your property to ensure you achieve the best yields. For an additional fee, we can even source furnishings and fittings and oversee their installation.

Extensive marketing

We market all our residential clients’ properties on the biggest third-party property portals, Rightmove, Zoopla, Primelocation and On-The-Market, as well as our own website and high-profile premises in Poole High Street.

Aside from our external marketing, we maintain a close working relationship with many local businesses and the MoD who often require corporate lettings for staff and contractors. In addition, we frequently work with insurers to accommodate householders whose homes have been rendered uninhabitable by insured risks.

Comprehensive Tenant Vetting

Quay Living prides itself on having some of the lowest arrears and default rates in the lettings industry. The reason for this is simple. We undertake comprehensive tenant vetting and credit referencing and we use our own professional instinct to assess whether the prospective tenant is suitable. We do succeed in achieving rapid lettings, but we won’t accept a tenant unless we are fully satisfied with them. If we have ANY reservations we will always discuss them with the landlord first. Depending on our findings, we may recommend that you proceed with additional security, or we may simply reject the application and seek a fresh tenant. This cautious approach pays dividends for landlord and agent – better tenants look after the landlord’s investment, pay their rent on time and require less time to administer.

Reliable Team 24/7

Quay Living is almost unique amongst residential agents in directly employing its own maintenance manager, handymen and cleaners. We also have a dedicated team of external contractors who can be called upon at short notice to handle larger repairs and undertake safety checks.

Being open 7 days a week and offering 24-hours-a-day emergency coverage means we are always on-hand to deal with serious problems as soon as they arise. Tenants and landlords can relax, safe in the knowledge that if a problem does occur, there will always be a human-being available to assist.