Fernleigh Estates

Overview

Fernleigh Estates is an invented estate and letting agency in Bristol with seven staff: a director who values homes, two sales negotiators, a sales progressor, a lettings negotiator, a property manager and an administrator. It sells homes for their owners across eight parts of the city, and lets homes for about sixteen landlords, managing most of them: it collects the rent and arranges repairs, and each month pays the landlord what is left after its fees.

The sample holds eighteen months of trading. Homes come on the market at a price the owner chooses, some sensibly and some too high; applicants register to buy or rent with an area, a number of bedrooms and a budget, and view the homes that suit them. Offers come in, most a little under the asking price; the owner accepts or turns each down, and an accepted sale moves through solicitors, searches and survey, the buyer's mortgage and exchange of contracts to completion, when the agency invoices its commission. About one sale in ten falls through and the home goes back on the market, and a few homes that will not sell are reduced or taken off.

On the lettings side each home has its run of tenancies: renewals, tenants who leave, and the weeks a home is marketed and viewed before the next tenant moves in. For a managed home the rent comes to the agency, most of it on the day and some late, and on the third working day of each month every landlord gets a statement of the rent collected, the management fee and VAT taken, any letting fee and repairs, and the sum paid to them. The agency's own invoices, for commission on sales, letting fees and monthly management fees, all carry VAT at twenty percent.

In Rutba Data Files, choose Estate and letting agent on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

• An estate agent that only sells homes
• A letting agent that only lets and manages
• A commercial property agent, with units in place of homes
• A holiday let agency, with bookings in place of tenancies
• An auction house selling property lots
• A relocation or property finding service

Read on

• Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 7 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
• Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 19 tables, and how they are related.
• Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business, the agency's own name, address, VAT number and bank details, which every letter, statement and invoice prints. Then enter Staff, the Areas you work in, the Solicitors you deal with and your Contractors. Enter each client in Clients and each home in Properties, and applicants in Applicants as they register. Viewings, offers and sales come in as you trade. For lets, enter each Tenancy, a Rent Charge each month for the rent you collect, Repairs as they are reported, and a Landlord Statement with its lines for each landlord at the month end. Raise your own fees in Agency Invoices with their Invoice Lines.

Questions people ask

How do I find buyers for a new instruction?

Enter the home in Properties with its Area, Bedrooms and Price and a Status of For sale, then open the query Applicants matching a property. It lists the active buyers in that area whose budget reaches the price and who want no more bedrooms than it has.

How do I see where each sale has got to?

Open the report Sales progress, which groups the sales by stage with how long each has been going. The query Sales by stage gives the count and the fees to come at each stage.

How is a landlord's payment worked out?

The rent received for them in the month, less the management fee (the tenancy's Management Fee times the rent) and VAT on it, less any letting fee and VAT for a new tenancy, less the repairs finished that month. The Landlord statement prints each line and the sum paid.

Why does a let only tenancy have no rent charges?

With a let only service the agency finds the tenant and the tenant pays the landlord directly, so there is no rent to collect or pay out. Its only invoice is the letting fee, which the landlord pays by bank transfer.

How do I print a memorandum of sale for one sale?

Open the Sales form, find the sale and print the template Memorandum of sale from there, or open Print templates, choose Memorandum of sale and choose the sale from its list.

Can I use this for commercial property?

Yes, with small changes: add a Use Class or Size field to Properties, use leases in place of tenancies, and change the agreement's words. The viewings, offers and sales work as they are.

How do I see what the agency earned last year?

Open the report Commission by month. Each month shows the fees before VAT from sales, letting and management, and the totals cover every month in the file.