We had a fantastic 2015. It started off with the introduction of a new role of Head of Operations meaning we now have one person responsible for all aspects of our service level and day to day running. We want to offer the very best customer service experience and Bruce (Almighty) Rothwell joined the team and was tasked with constantly improving our service. Bruce’s introduction coincided with the acquisition of another letting agency, Help4Letting in February which was an exciting step forward for us and an injection of c60 new managed properties. The beginning of the year also saw us take the big step of moving our property management database to a new innovative system that can help take our service level to new heights. It was A LOT of work but watch this space for exciting improvements ahead!
Student Lets & Maintenance Team
As has become the norm, we managed to successfully rent our student properties nice and early in the year and, as always, we had a busy old summer with the sunshine encouraging the majority of professionals, students and families to move around over the summer months. The summer was also the time to introduce our in-house maintenance department and we welcomed Davie Forsyth who leads up the maintenance team. The team is off to a flyer and it’s brilliant for us to have skilled maintenance professionals on hand to respond to tenant maintenance requests as they understand what we’re about and they demonstrate the high levels of customer care we expect at Umega.
Investors in People, Living Wage & B Corp
We continued our great work with Investors in People during the course of the year, putting development plans in place for all of the team and we took the step of becoming Living Wage Employers in the summer and in October we became only the 3rd B Corp accredited business in Scotland which we are immensely proud of. B Corp is a global standard for businesses that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, worker engagement and transparency. We are extremely proud to be the 3rd business in Scotland to gain the BCorp accreditation and it demonstrates how serious we are when we say we not only want to be the best IN Edinburgh but we want to be the best FOR Edinburgh.
Quartermile
After a hectic summer, our workload tails off a little once our summer tenants settle in at their new properties and so we took the chance to complete our second acquisition of the year, taking on the management of c50 quality Quartermile properties from the agency, Edinburgh City Pads. We are excited to work on this portfolio in the world-renowned Quartermile development, just across The Meadows from our office. Our aim is to manage quality properties with quality tenants and we were delighted to be the agent of choice to take on the management of this prestigious portfolio.
Our Best is Yet to Come
2015 really was a big year for us. Alongside all these highlights, there were a huge number of improvements and innovations going on in the background and we have to say our team, our systems and our internal processes have never been stronger. You just need to take a look at our online reviews on google or at AllAgents (the Letting industry’s answer to Trip Advisor) to see how we’re doing. We’re really proud of the huge steps forward we took last year and are already on course to exceeding this with what we have planned for 2016. There are plenty changes coming in terms of legislation, tax and regulation within the lettings industry that we’ll navigate safely on your behalf. We will continue to make progress this year in what we offer landlords, our customer service levels and our influence within the sector. We will continue to set the standard in our industry of what a great letting agency is and try to meet our own high standards and ambitious objectives.