Monday, February 12, 2018

Schadenfraude (or however you spell it).

We get on pretty well with our owners. They obviously pay our "wages" but in the end, we tend not to get every penny we can out of them, which is probably a mistake, but anyway that's how we are. We believe in a bit of give and take. We charge more for our complete property management service that if an owner sources all the separate components themselves as they are cutting out the middle man. And that is fine, you can't win 'em all.

So the other week we had an enquiry from a very large house not too far away from us to quote for a full management service. We did so and slightly under what we should have charged because there was a lot involved. They decided we were too expensive. No problem, we don't need any extra owners but we could have outed a couple of others with their replacement.

So earlier today, on a facebook group I follow, there was a request from someone for recommendations for a plumber as they had an emergency and needed to get it sorted out. Well, well, it was the same people. If they had gone with us there would have been a plumber in today. So now they know why what we offer might cost a little more. If everything goes right you have saved money, if it doesn't it costs more in money and more importantly, stress.

No, I didn't recommend anyone. I did however have a little sense of "satisfaction" that their decision had come back to bite them. It doesn't show me in the best of light but better than if I had replied on the page asking whether they had thought of getting a property management company.

1 comment:

Masher said...

I think I too would have felt a little bit of smug satisfaction.

And how things have changed. In my day, if you needed a plumber, you let your fingers do the walking and looked in "good ol' Yellow Pages".

Or "La Pages Jaunes", in your case.

Nowadays you ask on Facebook?