Edinburgh Flats partnership (EFP) is a new flexible and responsive property management company who specialise in short term lets. We provide a range of services including marketing using web advertising, booking, arranging changeovers, and consultancy for setting up short term let accommodation.

Our aims are to help:

• guests to find and enjoy good quality short term accommodation that meets their needs easily and effectively
• landlords to take advantage of the financial benefits associated with short term lets whilst taking away any of the set up or management activity that they do not wish to do themselves.

Background

Edinburgh Flats Partnership was established in 2007 by Lenore Kennedy and Janet Unsworth who both own and manage their own properties as well providing these services for other property owners. We are based in Edinburgh and our service is currently available in Edinburgh and the Lothian area

Lenore has been managing property for 17 years in the long-term rental market in Edinburgh. She understands the pros and cons of owning Long term rental properties. For 6 years, Lenore lived in the Channel Islands, and had used agencies to manage her home property and her flats. This experience has highlighted to her the frustrations that are caused when someone is managing your property. She knows what it is like to have someone else managing your assets.

Lenore, a Canadian living in Scotland, graduated university with a Bachelor of Mathematics. She worked for many years in the IT industry, (more years than she cares to remember). And in her last years at the office, she worked in a website design company where she helped build and analyse many commercial websites. For many years she has owned and managed flats in the city of Edinburgh, and three years ago she took this on as her full-time job.

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Janet has a background as a Management Consultant, Project Manager and Executive in the technology and financial services sectors. She is a Physics graduate, a Fellow of the Institute of Management Accountants and a Member of the British Computer Society.

We decided to establish our company after recognising the financial advantages of short term lets over longer term lets and the desire for many people, including ourselves, to hold property as part of our investment portfolio. In an area such as Edinburgh which has high property costs it is difficult for traditional buy-to lets to cover costs whilst there is an active tourist industry which is not confined to a short season.

In addition we discovered that there is demand for short term accommodation from people attending conferences, working here for a few days or weeks e.g during the run of a show at the many theatres in the city or on contract at the companies based here, people attending short courses, families visiting students. These people often struggle to find suitable accommodation and so we decided to target our marketing to these areas as well as the traditional tourist market.

Janet was looking to invest in property after selling property in London. She did an assessment of the property opportunities and identified the challenges of covering costs with buy-to-let property and the tax advantages of short term lets. So she tried it – researching the market, buying a well located property, renovating it, equipping it for short term lets and marketing it. The financials stacked up. Setting up and managing the properties was hard work – but she enjoyed it and the feedback from her guests, together with the repeat business, demonstrated she was good at it.

What wasn’t so good, was the quality of the web-sites she was using for marketing – or the costs of using these web-sites. Meanwhile, Lenore, who had been managing properties for many years, was getting interested in the financial benefits of the short term market. Lenore, with a background in web development, was convinced we could provide a better service for both potential guests and landlords. And so was born the edinburgh-flats.com. The idea is to allow property owners the chance to advertise their properties, while keeping the advertising charges low.

While at the start of our website we will be low on flats until it becomes proven, we are convinced that we can offer an easy to use website for both the property owners and guests wishing to book accommodation.