'We are getting better guests with Truvi services'

Oliver Harp was looking for a reliable partner to manage rental risks.

Oliver Harper, the managing director of Harper Luxe Serviced Apartments, has been in the industry for almost 45 years. He has grown from a HOD carrier to an STR business owner. In a recent interview, we talked about his professional path and rental best practices.

“Over the years, I’ve been involved in a lot of property management”

Oliver has been working in the construction and property industry for decades, climbing the ladder from the bottom.

“I started in the construction industry when I was 15, working on all things of what’s called a HOD carrier. So, I used to work for bricklayers. But I had bigger visions, and I then went into carpentry and joinery, plumbing, and various other building trades. In 1991, I decided to set up my own property development company.

Myself and my selected team, we started to buy old derelict houses and convert them. Then, clients were asking us to help them build their own property portfolios. And within that, we touched on finance and management.

“At the moment we’re looking after about a dozen properties as well as commercial.”

“We needed to have a professional company to work alongside”

As their business and the number of managed properties were growing, Oliver and his team were looking for a reliable insurance provider. That’s how they ended up with Truvi.

“If anything was to happen, we wanted to have a third-party protection company assist us.

It was three, maybe four years ago when I first started to look at third-party insurance providers. There’s obviously quite a few companies out there. The key reason I stayed with Truvi was the service that I had from the team members.”

It was more of a personal service than feeling like you were the number within an insurance company. It made a huge difference to myself, especially being a small business, knowing that I could obviously work alongside another small business, sharing sort of similar values and views.”

“Having this service was a real game changer for us”

Guest Screening, Damage Deposit, and Damage waiver are the core services Oliver and his team use, but they also benefit a lot from guest screening.

“The service that we use at the moment is the damage waiver. It’s more like a safeguard, but it’s also a deterrent. So, whoever the guests that are coming in, they have to go through quite a few steps to make sure that they are screened accordingly. But I haven’t heard any problems with this, and may that continue.”

Having a guest screening and immediate response whether or not they’re verified, and having that automated system notifying us of what we need to do like respond back to them and ask for further details was a real game changer for us.”

A few tips on successful property management

Decades in the industry have made Oliver formulate several basic rules for successful property management. It’s always about having a good team and offering something special.

“First of all, you need a good team in place. I’ve got some really good, reliable team members around me, who I can rely on if there is anything that needs to be addressed.”

 

It’s also having the appropriate product. I can honestly say from the experience that I’ve been involved in property and renting property out for a few decades, you need to have something that’s quite unique.

Besides that, sustainability matters. Careful use of utilities reduces both carbon footprint and monthly bills.

 

“Guests can be informed on how they can contribute to day-to-day running of a property. So if it’s things like saving water and electricity and looking at waste management, we try to educate all our guests on how they could benefit from just doing little changes that will make a huge impact.”

“And also, on top of that, we are very much into wellness. We team up with a local company to offer guests free gym access when they stay with us. And we’ve got a fleet of bicycles now at the guest’s disposal they can use to explore all the bicycle paths around Bedfordshire.”