Good Place Lettings has been great – very friendly and supportive. I value that their mission is to be a better letting agent. I really hope that with their ethos, they manage to make a success of it. I’d love for this to be a positive influence on the rest of the housing market.
My father passed away a few years ago. He left me a bit of money and his house. When I sold the house, I was looking for a sensible financial investment – something that stayed on the right side of my ethics. I know that investing in property is considered a safe option, but I didn’t necessarily want to become a landlord. I’ve been through the rental sector; I know how exploitative and abusive it can be. I wanted to do something different.
So, I started shopping around to see if any charities might be interested in taking on a property that I would own, and they could use. It was such an odd proposition that no one really knew what to do with it. I knew Crisis was doing a lot of work around Housing First, getting people directly into housing and then addressing their problems rather than trying to resolve them while they’re sofa-surfing or staying in hostels. Crisis put me in touch with Ben at Good Place Lettings.
My plans fit in with what Good Place is trying to do. I met with Ben and we got on really well. Our values are aligned.
Ben was involved right from the planning stages. While looking at properties, we were going back and forth, sharing ideas and looking at potentials. We discussed what was needed, what would work and what wouldn’t. We found a property in Wood Green that was affordable and in a well-connected area. I live locally, so I’m close enough to check on the property occasionally if needed. The seller was leaving the country, so for a few thousand extra, I bought the fixtures and fittings – from the furniture right down to the crockery in the kitchen. It’s allowed us to quickly turn around a furnished property ready for a potential tenant.
But no path ever runs true. I had a few plumbing jobs I wanted done, so one day I got a guy in. It started to roll on a bit, as plumbing jobs often do, and I began to regret agreeing to pay by the hour. He happened to be there the same day that Ben and Charlie from Good Place were coming over. We had one of those sharp outbursts of rain. Just bucketing down for 10 minutes. So, Ben and Charlie were sheltering at Wood Green Tube Station, waiting for the rain to pass. My plumber was in his van, waiting for the rain to pass. The rain did finally pass, but unfortunately, it passed right through my ceiling! At which point, everyone turned up at my door at once. It was utter chaos that afternoon. It’s an ex-council flat on a council block, so the roof was the council’s problem, thankfully. I came in a week later, and there was a card through the door from the council saying they had fixed it. I guess the previous tenant had already reported it. We got lucky in the end; you hear some horror stories about getting repairs out of councils.
Our tenant will come to us through Crisis. This is a very different prospect, predicated more on getting someone housed, rather than exploiting a housing asset. I wanted a solid investment that I could rely on, but it has evolved to a point where I can use this to make a difference to someone directly. Give them a foot back on the ladder.
