Managing and making money from your overseas property ‘The Facts’

Finding the right management company contract is a bit like trying to unravel which is the best mobile phone deal. On the face of it, they all seem to offer the same thing, just dressed up in a different way. But, just like the phone deals, what features are you paying for, and will you get your money’s worth out of them?

One way or another, the average management company looks to take anywhere from £300 to £1,500 from you in charges each year. At the bottom end of the scale it’s basically a key-holding service with everything else charged as an extra in pay-as-you-go fashion. With a basic key-holding package you will invariably find the service is only available for keys collected from the office during normal opening hours. Anything outside of that is charged by the hour for staying open or as a ‘meet-and-greet’ charge. On ten rentals for example, you suddenly find you have spent another £200 just getting your keys into your customer’s hands. Suddenly, that budget key-holding deal doesn’t look so great after all.

At the other end of the scale, full management contracts look hugely comprehensive, but often offer a lot of features which many people don’t really need. And it’s in these all-inclusive contracts that you also find the offer of property rentals included – you don’t have to do a thing! But in addition to the higher than average cost of services, your rental income is further eroded by booking commissions (generally of around 20%). That’s assuming they can get them for you in the first place.

If you get the rentals yourself, you hit the additional charges that sit outside your contract, so you feel obliged to use the cleaning and linen services of your management company – after all, they’re holding the keys anyway! And getting another cleaning company to travel to your property for a one-off changeover clean just isn’t possible.

With Overseas Keys we put your keys into your clients’ hands no matter what time day or night. With our Trades & Services section, you can shop around for the best deal for everything you need – and yes, the cleaning companies we offer will travel. And they are competitive. Should you want to advertise your property, you can put it on our rental portal for free for the first year; after that you decide if it represents value for money. Add to this the fact that as we are part of The Co-operative Travel, the UK’s leading independent travel agent. We can offer your property for rental to Europe’s leading tour operators and guess what? We don’t charge you any commission!

And best of all... NO CONTRACTS

One year with Overseas Keys verses the rest;

	Management company		Overseas Keys
10 rentals at say £300 each	£3,000		£3,000
Less commission	£600		£0
Less annual fee			£150
Less meet and greet fee’s	£200		£0
Less annual management fee	£300		£0
Less advertising on internet rental portal	£200		£0
Cash in your hand	£1,700		£2,850

Management company charges are shown as an average. In the main, management companies advertise their prices excluding VAT. The Overseas Key fee is shown excluding VAT.

With Overseas Keys you pocket the difference £1,150.