Utilising the expertise of an asset manager can sometimes be hard to fully support when it comes to property sales as one - whether a financial institution or a home builder - may find it hard to outsource its services, fully trust the company or be willing to step back from the process.

However, residential property specialists Move with Us have a great reputation; in most of the properties they control, the sale can attain an average of 101 per cent OMV. Jason McGee-Abe secured an interview with Peter Gammon, Managing Director of the Asset Management division at Move with Us, to find out about the model and his plans for the future…

MOVE WITH US

Move with Us provides a wide range of property services to its corporate property services clients and national partner network of 1,200 estate agent offices. The company was set up in 1997 and has been listed as the 24th fastest growing private company in the Sunday Times’ Profit Track 100. 

Move with Us provides a comprehensive and accurate valuation and sale process for properties owned by building societies, mortgage lenders and financial institutions within repossession and probate/trust transactions. The asset management division ensures clients maximise property sale values and controls timescales and risk in all circumstances. It completes over 10,000 property sale transactions per year, and manages 4,000 rental property transactions within its corporate business, with a panel managed conveyance operation managing over 40,000 transactions per year.

Move with Us works closely with mortgage lenders, financial institutions and many of the top ten new home developers within the UK. It also operates a network of estate agents across the UK, which currently numbers over 1,200 offices offering a wide range of property related products including estate agency referral and conveyancing. 

When selling property, only the very highest calibre estate agents are chosen from bespoke market intelligence software, ensuring each property is expertly represented in the local market. Move with Us also controls a multi-million pound property fund utilised for the acquisition and sale of property for new home builders and their part exchange transactions.

CONTROLLING PROPERTY SALES – ALTERNATIVE TO AUCTION

There are many advantages to controlling property sales and disposal through an expert asset manager as opposed to auctioning or distressed selling. This relationship offers a greater return to the lender through higher end values and reduced losses, as the asset manager, through its unique processes and choice of correct agents, is able to attain an average OMV value for a property at 101 per cent.

Peter commented: “Just as a guideline, 99 per cent of the properties that we take from possession or sell on behalf of a corporate client right through to completion are completed within 92 days. With residential properties we typically hit 101 per cent of OMV, whereas if you compare with what is achieved at some auctions they would attain in the region of 80-82 per cent of the true market value.

“Roughly nine out of every ten properties are sold within a four week period when they are marketed for sale within our model, as we have many unique ways of marketing and attracting larger volumes of buyers.”

If a property that does exceed a pre-agreed period, the asset manager would look at obtaining an auction appraisal to ensure the distress value was accounted for and understood. B&C was told that less than 0.5 per cent of all the properties managed go to auction through Move with Us due to the success of their process and people.

Move with Us also operates its own maintenance and refurbishment division, which provides national security and cleaning service and reviews refurbishment works where in the interest of both the borrower and also the lender some additional capital spend will look at adding value to the property and market appeal.

The team has a wealth of experience in the residential and buy-to-let market as Move with Us provide an extensive LPA Receivership service to offer full rental and tenant management for BTL lenders.

Investing heavily in Rental Management Support the company offers portfolio advice, acquisition assessment, and professional support to landlords and investors who are looking to maximise their property yield returns. Many of these skills have helped lenders limit the risk of increased arrears and potential onward losses, with accurate and diligent management of the borrower and tenant.

CLIENTS ONLINE

Its online property system allows corporate clients to visualise their whole portfolio in one place. It is a real-time operating system and live portal.

Clients receive full transparency as a result which allows them to interact on all property matters, keeping control and being fully aware of every transaction. The system also provides an excellent platform to audit and monitor compliance as well as ensuring it is achieving the best price possible.

WHITEHOT PROPERTY

Five per cent of properties are sold by Move with Us a year via web portal marketing and directly to consumers and investors through www.whitehotproperty.co.uk. Only properties that have been through a controlled, independent valuation process and have no ‘sales chains’ are branded as ‘white hot properties’. Chain free properties include part-exchange, probates, and repossession properties. 

The whitehotproperty portal achieves an impressive 35,000 unique registered hits from investors across the UK, and the asset manager directly markets bi-weekly market updates to all the investors. There is an online fit-for-purpose marketing tool which is full of all the latest and up-to-date information on all properties.

Peter said: “We promote on average 2,000 properties at any one stage, which continues to grow month-on-month through the attraction of generating more buyers and offers for each property. 

“We promote a public notice system that informs any buyer of the properties that we manage and of every offer we agree. In terms of buyers or investors bidding for the properties, our data shows that 50 per cent of investors increase their original bid and 20 per cent of the properties receive multiple offers.”

This portal for investors and up-to-date information of the bidding process stimulates competition amongst investors which helps to increase the potential OMV of the property when it is sold.

Peter stated: “We are also developing an ‘eBay-style’ website and layout for the investors which will list all the properties in terms of when the bidding expires and indicates the latest information such as when contracts are exchanged.”

STAFF

“All of our case managers have property or IFA backgrounds. This knowledge, and our bespoke systems, allow us to deliver to our clients service-level agreements and helps to ensure that we have a solid and robust audit trail throughout the process,” Peter stated.

Move with Us employs over 300 people from its St Ives Cambs head office, with over 100 qualified account managers within its asset management business areas. 

THE FUTURE

Peter commented: “The future will bring our clients and customers a number of innovative solutions designed to offer even greater control and assurance around best practice property services. We are committed to investing in technology and adding value to our clients’ by remaining the first choice for property sale and rental services.”

Move with US will soon launch the UK’s leading rental index, which will be the largest index of its kind with over 300,000 individual pieces of data. The company will be soft launching the index later this month leading to the production of monthly trend analysis, geographical rental reviews and yield calculation through user specific geographical selection.

To find out more information contact Peter Gammon on 01480 409 512