OMO: letting agents

[ClunkintheUK]

So, looks like we'll be needing to rent out our flat.

We are going to be moving about 2 hours' drive away from the flat, so couple of questions, if anyone has any experience.

Is it a god idea to go for managed services, or can you do it yourself as the semi arms length?

Has anyone got any experience of the new agents on the market, namely Upad and Rentify?

Any info is welcomed.

[thefallenangel]

Get decent people cut the middle man out and manage it yourself. I manage living 15 minutes away helps but if it's new and the tenants look after it your rolling. plus if anything is wrong, 3 way email with local tradespeople to sort keeps you in the loop. Anything drastically wrong the agent would bounce back to you anyway

[Mrs DJ Fridge]

Everything is fine without a letting agency until something goes wrong, we had a tennent who would neither pay nor leave, the agents were excellent at sorting it and getting our money from her guarantors, it turned out to be a scam that this particular person pulled on a very regular basis. They were local agents and we sold the flat 6 years years ago.

[keith_d]

I've not owned a rental property myself, but I rented quite a lot when I was younger.

If you are lucky enough to get a decent agent with good connections for tradesmen it can work really well. But I wouldn't trust most of them to organise a party in a brewery. They can waste a lot of everyone's time, where a quick call to the landlord would resolve the problem.

So before stumping up for a managed service ask to talk to one or two of their existing landlords. Of if you want to be really sneaky just try them out by pretending you want to rent one of the properties they've got to let. You can learn a lot by looking at it from the tenants perspective.

I'd also suggest getting a copy of Liz Hodgkinson's book on letting property. I used to have a copy and it's got some good information in it.

Just my thoughts,

Keith.

[Mrs DJ Fridge]

Excellent idea looking at it from the tenants point of view, if you have time that has to be the answer.

[PyroUK]

You can also reassure yourself on the cash side by using the agents on a "find and vet" basis, that's what I do.

The agents are letting specialists and can find the tenants, do credit checks and referencing and draw up the leases. After that I then manage it as I know they can afford it and they are decent tenants. They can also do it on a fully managed basis with rent guarantee.

At the end of the day it's up to you how much risk you are willing to take, how much time you have to deal with anything that may go wrong etc

[shiftin_gear98]

We let our flat out for awhile due to not being able to sell, we used a local independent estate agent, they were brilliant.
We were lucky we had the perfect tenant for 4 years, until it was time to sell the flat, then she refused to leave etcetera - contracts not worth the value of the paper they are written on.
However the letting agents were brilliant, and handled everything that was thrown at them. Not sure it would have been so easy to finally get rid of her on our own.

[EssexDave]

From my experience, the agents are not worth anything. We moved in, having paid an extortionate amount in 'agent's fees'.

Any problems we had, they just said contact the landlord. (Who was a doctor and practically always busy).

If you decide to do it yourself, you can make extra money but you end up with having to do a little more work yourself so I guess that's something you need to consider.

There are legal requirements, and you'll want to get a good lease written up to protect yourself.

I'm sure there's plenty of advice online, but really it's up to you whether you want the extra money and are willing to do a little extra work.

[Skybaba]

In 2012 we had to rent out our house in Sheffield when we decided to move to Bedford and the house didn't sell.

The agents were great with helping us get the tenant, tenancy and the likes. Granted, these were things we could have done our own, but I think it helped having them do it.

As far as I'm concerned, that's as far as I would go next time.

After the tenant moved in, I felt all they cared about was the monthly charge and the tenant felt the same way!

On one occasion, I had to rely on my old neighbour to go into the house and fix a broken shower.

It's been almost two years now and the agents have practically ignored emails and queries but they never miss taking their cut out.

I've got a great neighbour who keeps and eye on the house and he also hooked me up with an excellent tradesman.......I'm confident I can manage the property "remotely" however the agency has refused to budge.

It's almost 2 years now and it appears the only option available is for the current tenants to move out and I get another tenant.

I feel it's unfair for the tenant to be the one to suffer, especially because they've been excellent and they've kept the house in good nick!

So if I were to do this all over again, I would only engage the agency for the letting process and rent guarantee insurance and stuff like that, but would manage it myself.

My 2 cents.

[ClunkintheUK]

Thanks for the advice guys.

still not sure which way to go, but we have a better idea of our options. The best bit of advice seems to be, get good tenants then hold onto them.

It does seem a total waste of money to pay an agent 10% ongoing for just finding a tenant, at the begining, not that I am underestimating the value of finding a good tenant.

[PyroUK]

Good luck with it mate, as a guide to give you an idea and I don't know if this is reasonable or not but it's what mine charge, for a find and vet I am charged £70+vat for 6month agreements and £110+vat for 12 month agreements.

[ClunkintheUK]

Who is that? or are they local to you?

[PyroUK]

They are local mate. Pretty much only cover the 3 towns here.

Oh just thought, another option is if the agents do just vet which might be cheaper, there are a couple of websites I use to find tenants and then pass on to agents just to credit and reference.

Spareroom and roombuddies, found them more reliable than gumtree. I have sent you a pm as well

[ClunkintheUK]

Ta. got the PM too.