Lavanda set to revolutionise London residential market
Challenger brand shaking up rental market by helping landlords and tenants profit from sharing economy
Today sees the launch of Lavanda, the pioneer of an innovative and fully compliant residential letting product enabling landlords to profit by embracing the sharing economy – increasing net rental yields by up to 10%.
Homesharing via platforms like Airbnb is one of the capital’s fastest growing industries. To date, however, it is an activity that has largely been conducted in breach of planning permission, leases, mortgages and/or insurance policies. Although a segment of the market with huge disruptive potential, it has until now simply been evolving too quickly to entice landlords to engage more meaningfully.
Lavanda has fused the worlds of luxury hospitality, technology and property management to craft a new high-yield product, the ‘Service Let’, which works in the interests of both landlords and tenants alike. New-form leases are developed in partnership with landlords, with properties then let and actively managed by Lavanda. In the context of a Service Let, a long-term tenant is entitled to sublet the property up to a maximum number of 90 days in a calendar year (at the landlord’s discretion but always compliant with local London planning restrictions). This enables tenants to efficiently monetise slack capacity in their home, with a portion of the subletting income shared transparently with the landlord. Lavanda provides the tenant with a hassle-free, luxury hospitality service guaranteeing a boutique hotel-style guest experience worthy of “superhost” status, and resulting in optimal subletting revenue for the tenant.
The Service Let model further optimises rental yields by offering tenants the possibility of opting in to a range of premium ‘serviced living’ hospitality packages, increasingly popular with today’s busy professionals. For a monthly fee, tenants can benefit from hotel-style living – including housekeeping, luxury linen, branded toiletries, on-call handyman and even a personal concierge service. A percentage of revenues generated by these services are also shared transparently with the landlord.
Commenting on the launch Guy Westlake, CEO of Lavanda said: “Lavanda’s integrated approach to luxury hospitality, multichannel letting and property management is core to creating value for central London property owners. Our Service Let product taps into the way people want to live today, ultimately powering maximum yield to landlords and a more affordable rental proposition to tenants. Homesharing and serviced living is the new norm; it is time to embrace and professionalise this market, and we are excited to help the industry take its first steps in this direction.”
The business aims to capture 10% of the London lettings market within the next 5 years. The company has a 30-strong team and has recently appointed Sebastian Moritz as Head of Operations (formerly Director of Rooms at The London Edition) and James Robotham as Growth Manager (formerly Senior Negotiator at Knight Frank).
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