Sally Wang’s Property Success Essentials

George Banns cathes up with Sally Wang, SJW Property Management, to discover how international buyers are continiuing to grasp the retail oppotunities the UK has to offer.

Tell us more about SJW property management

I established SJW in 2015 in response to my own experience after I had moved to the UK in 2001. At that time I was a Chinese student but I found that after more than a decade of living in the country, I was still finding it difficult to purchase my own property. This lead me to feel that there needed to be more help on the market to help first-time buyers, even more so for the non-UK residents and Chinese nationals.

Ten years down the line as a business, we are now covering buying, selling, letting and management, as well as building your dream house from scratch. The majority of our clients and service users are based in mainland China; but not only do we help those clients, we also cater to clients based all around the world that are looking to purchase a property across four major locations, London, Cambridge, Oxford, and Birmingham.

Why is there such interest in UK real estate?

SJW properties only represents a very small fraction of the market by comparison, but from what we do have, there appears two main reasons that our clients show interest in UK real estate. Number one is that their children are/or will be studying in the UK. Practically thinking, rather than spending money on rent - the Chinese culture is to buy property. Then if the kids don't need to use it, we rent it out instead. The second reason is to spread the risk. For example some people buy stocks, we buy properties.

What is your best piece of advice for those looking to invest in UK Real estate?

To find a professional, trustworthy person or team to work alongside you. The simple reason is that you need this to have as much unbiased information as possible; this will help make the property investment process much smoother. Secondly, if you encounter any problems, this team needs to hold the resources, professional knowledge, dedication and persistence to help you solve them. Once you have found this - let them handle the professional matters to help you save time and stress.

What’s the first step you take when helping a new client?

Whenever a new client approaches us, the first thing we always do is listen. We need to listen to the client to find out exactly what this person's real needs are and where they are in the purchasing process. Do they know the buying process already? Or are they just thinking about buying at the moment? Do they know what they want the property to achieve financially as a bilateral investment or will it be owner occupied. If it is to be owner occupied, what are the most important requirements for them? We need to listen to figure out who this person is, what exactly they want and what resources they have and what do or dont they know about the process and reality of their decisions. Only then can we truly use our professional knowledge to support them. So the key thing we need to do is to know the client.

How do you help international buyers manage their property?

The first thing to note is, it doesn't matter whether they are in the UK or not, our preccess remains the same. Prior to completion, our lettings and management team investigates whether there are any faults in the finish of the property and rectify them before the handover to the owner. After the completion, we offer a design and furniture prourment service, meaning we can make the new house a home. Then, if needed, our search for a tenant and for this, we have three different methods.

Number one is our in house letting team, where we will list the property. Secondly, we instruct two or three local agents to find tenants for us. Thirdly, we speak to relocation agents for those units that can be harder to rent out for one reason or another. Our goal is to find the best quality tenants within the shortest period of time, whilst also achieving the highest rental that we can in relation to current markets. Once we get an applicant, our letting and management team will navigate the tenants moving process and look after the property and maintain it moving forward.

For international landlords, we also do a lot of things that local agents don't provide, for example, we need to look after their service, keeping an eye on their service charge and ground rent. Secondly, we need to be very active in communicating with the owners. We help them to do the yearly self assessment returns, and our management team are appropriately qualified for the clients reassurance. There are law factors, we're regulated by the property ombudsman and ARLA, so we make sure that we're professional.

Our senior team members have 20 to 25 years experience in letting and management. We're fast in communicating - in a way that our international landlords are confident in communicating within, so that's why we are very successful and why we continue to expand so quickly.

Find out more about SJW Property Management.