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Every lettings agency has a CRM, not every one is fit to inherit. A (mostly true) ghist story about what buyers find in the database after completion.

Margaret has been in the CRM since 2018. This week she emailed and she is still thinking about the parking situation. A Russou data story.

The headline number in most sales conversations is the multiple. Three times profit. Four times profit. It sounds precise. It's only as reliable as the profit figure it's being multiplied by. The problem is, not all profit is the profit you think it is. Sellers, entirely reasonably, want to present the business in its best light. That often means "adjusted" profit, with addbacks for things that supposedly won't apply once you own it. Some addbacks are legitimate. Some are doi

Every lettings agency we walk into has at least one. A contact record that looks fine on the surface. A name. A note or two. Some activity logged against it. Nothing that immediately raises a flag. Until you look closer. No surname. No company. No verifiable contact details. A viewing request attached to a property that was sold three years ago. And a note, that was added in 2018 and was never updated that says she is "very particular about parking." Let's call her Margaret.

The lease summary in a lettings agency sale pack rarely tells the full story. Here's what to check in the actual document before you commit.

Most buyers check the accounts. Far fewer check whether the contracts, licences and key employment agreements actually survive the sale. Here's what to ask for before you complete on a lettings agency — and why a seller's answer tells you as much as their numbers.

One landlord can hold half a lettings agency's income and you'd never know it from the accounts. Here's why customer concentration is the number to check first.

Every year, a steady stream of people decide the smartest way into the lettings business isn't to build one from scratch, it's to buy one that already works. Established landlords, a trading name people recognise, income from day one. On paper, it looks like the sensible route. Then completion happens, and the surprises start. At Russou, we sit on the buyer's side of the table for a living. We've seen good businesses bought well, and good businesses bought badly, and the diff

Episode 1: The Arrival. A new system joins the office. Everyone is on their best behaviour. Data is being logged correctly and completely. There is genuine enthusiasm. Nobody has yet discovered the import errors. Episode 3: The Plot Twist. A spreadsheet is discovered that was never imported into the system. It contains two years of tenancy data. It was built by someone called Gary. Gary left in March. The spreadsheet is labelled "DO NOT DELETE" and nobody will open it. Episod

A bad CRM migration doesn't cost you once, it costs you for months. Here are the six hidden costs lettings agencies face, and how proper preparation avoids them.

One of the biggest misconceptions in a migration is that small issues can be managed later. In reality, small issues rarely stay small. They just take time to show up. And when they do, they’re often harder and more expensive to fix.

Meet the five people who show up in every lettings CRM migration, the spreadsheet warrior, the reconciliation gremlin, and the rest of the cast that makes migrations actually succeed.

Every lettings agency has an onboarding process — and a translation problem. Here's what "ask Sarah" and "the system is very intuitive" are really telling your new starter about how your business runs.

Most lettings agencies use just 30% of what Reapit can do. Here are the three most commonly underused areas — and how a proper Reapit optimisation and training review closes the gap for your team.

Opening balances are your starting line. If you begin in the wrong place, every report, every transaction, and every decision that follows is built on shaky ground.

The Point of No Return Go-live is a bit like pressing “send” on something you can’t take back. Up until that point: Everything may have looked fine in testing. Reports seemed accurate. Data appeared to behave as expected. But go-live is where theory becomes reality.

Most lettings agencies don't fail because they stop growing. They struggle because they grow faster than the operational foundations underneath them.

If you've ever been through a CRM migration, you'll recognise these stages. If you're about to go through one, consider this a preview.

"We'll fix it later." It sounds harmless. In estate agency, it often sounds sensible, there's always something more urgent demanding attention. A landlord to call back. A tenancy to renew. A compliance deadline that appeared from nowhere.

I recently took part in my first webinar with Kerfuffle, and if I'm honest, I went in with that familiar mix of nerves and excitement. Talking about CRM migrations is something I do every day. But doing it live, with an audience, and questions I hadn't prepared for, was a different thing entirely. It turned out to be one of the best things I've done. David made the whole session feel easy. It wasn't a formal interview, it was a proper conversation. We laughed, talked honestly