What makes the perfect letting agent?

adg1

1. Return calls
2. Do what you say you will do
3. Don't lie - landlords and tenants talk between themselves when they move in and you will be discovered.
4. Use a decent camera when taking pictures and PRODUCE A FLOORPLAN
5. Be upfront about fees to tenants
6. Keep your website, and subsequently the aggregators, updated and take properties off that are let
7. Check a property well before a tenant moves in and give them a heads up if there is an issue
8. Be a member of a Professional Body - ARLA, NALS, NAEA, Ombudsman etc
9. Tell people if you are running late, tell tenants if you are not viewing the property they live in
10. Keep people informed throughout the whole rental process - 6 weeks rent + 1 month advance + admin fees is a lot of cash for people - look after them

I'm sure theres more but that'll keep you going for now.

chewmylegoff

i've used a couple of decent enough letting agents in my time, but more bad ones than good. most are unqualified morons. to be honest, the good ones have tended to be when there are no maintenance problems with the property and the landlord isn't a knob who wants to retain the deposit so he can put a new kitchen in. in those situations, a good letting agent is one that you never see or hear from except at the start or end of the tenancy.

as for you not being interested in working for a letting agency before going alone, i think you have been too quick to dismiss this. even if only for a short time, you would surely get a better insight into what you could do to differentiate your own business from the chancers on the high street than getting third hand opinions from people on here.

amy104

I think my biggest bugbear with LA's is their inability to phone you back. I don't mind if they cannot get it fixed straight away, I don't mind if they can't get me a date and time because they are having a hard time getting hold of the LL or Contractor but it really wouldn't take them five mins to let me know these things. At least that way I know they are dealing with the issue and aren't just ignoring me.

clutton_2

""I think my biggest bugbear with LA's is their inability to phone you back.""

the only folks who ever call back these days are ones that you owe money to....

or is that just toooo cynical.......

dizziblonde

All I'd want (as a tenant through several LAs during my time):
- None of this "£80 to renew your tenancy for another year" malarky which involves photocopying the old contract with a bit of tippex. It's a con, a money making scam and far too many letting agents do it.
- None of the bullying "we have the right to enter your house to conduct viewings and we will do so when you're not present", followed by heavy huffing and tutting when I call in to reschedule it to a time when I'm in the house. Although you're paid by the landlord, it is our home for the time we're there - would you want someone going through yours when you were out? It can get quite intimidating and threatening at times - and we're more than painfully aware that it's the roof above our head at stake.
- If landlords are shirking their repair obligations - give them a verbal kick up the rear for us! Our letting agent is generally OK, but our landlord is terrible for refusing to do repairs and I was ever so grateful to the LA for calling him up and advising him that leaving us with water pouring from a leaking tank in the loft through the ceiling and the advice to either "turn the water off or stick a bucket under it" was NOT in fact on! (I'd reported the leak as a damp patch, he'd ignored it when it went through the drip and dribble phase and if he could he would have ignored the minor Niagra Falls phase as well).
- A little bit of helpfulness when we're house hunting. We're actually having to buy because of this - because, owing to the massive shortage of rental property around here, the letting agents are basically adopting a policy of "no help, some other mug will be along in 10 seconds who'll rent it" - we can't even get one to make a phonecall to a landlord to see if they'll consider letting us keep a cat (I was prepared to pay additional deposits, carpet cleaning clauses etc and can give references as to the furball's moral upstandingness as a member of society - they won't even bother to make a phonecall and ask)... understandably I don't want to view houses, fall in love(or like) and then be pressganged into having to rehome the cat - hence why I wanted to know straight off if it was a possibility... no cigar - you're just viewed as a criminal, as some kind of sub-human creature for not blindly signing up, paying your holding fee without any questions in the world.
- I don't like being made to feel like I'm in the wrong, or being unreasonable if I ring in with a repair. Using the roof leak example, I rang in saying, "Look, it's not a problem at the moment but there's obviously something going off with a damp patch of wallpaper near the loft - I don't want his house getting damaged and the ceilings coming down, can you just get it looked at in case it becomes a big problem?" I don't think it was unreasonable - but gawd, I was made to feel like some kind of lunatic tenant demanding to be allowed to paint the taps in the bathroom satsuma orange!

Generally though ours the office staff are useless and slightly bullying, but the back office repairs bods are pretty good (and have read the riot act on our behalf to LL before in terms of "look you need to fix this you pillock"... yes he's an accidental amateur landlord - never making that mistake again!).

mrcol1000

I rented for ages before I brought and to be honest I have been fairly lucky. A few minor hiccups but nothing major. I have rented from both private and letting agent and the private landlords have been the worse. They see you as a cash cow and do not like you daring to ask for something to be repaired. The letting agents I feel sorry for as quite often they are caught in the middle. For instance one property I rented the landlord flew to spain without warning every so often and was uncontactable meaning it was diffcult to authorise works. My last one insited on not using the tradespeople used by the letting agent and using their own which meant all repairs took longer, the letting agent didn't know what was going on half the time and they always used the cheapest and most useless.
I think the perfect letting agent will appericate that they have two customers. The landlord and the tenant. Both are important and without both they wouldn't make any money. Some letting agents seem to forget about the tennant.

DiscoPaul_2

chewmylegoff wrote: »

as for you not being interested in working for a letting agency before going alone, i think you have been too quick to dismiss this. even if only for a short time, you would surely get a better insight into what you could do to differentiate your own business from the chancers on the high street than getting third hand opinions from people on here.

That's an absolutely fair point. Thanks for your thoughts.

DiscoPaul_2

dizziblonde wrote: »

- None of this "£80 to renew your tenancy for another year" malarky which involves photocopying the old contract with a bit of tippex. It's a con, a money making scam and far too many letting agents do it.

I have seen varying differences between agencies with regards to these types of charges? What would you consider to be a reasonable charge? (if any)

lynzpower

I have seen some amazing fees to tenants recently:

185 +vat for "drawing up a tenancy"
120 per person credit check
750 + vat "admin fees"

Dont do this. It is awful. Youll get a terrible reputation

Moneysavers- if you are happy to pay these fees, feel free to talk to Time2move tooting.

God knows what they were charging the poor LL

lynzpower

DiscoPaul wrote: »

I have seen varying differences between agencies with regards to these types of charges? What would you consider to be a reasonable charge? (if any)

None! Everyone knows that the tenancy agreement is the same for all properties.

They shouldnt be "drawn up" on the hoof and lets face it we all know that they are not.

Tenants should well know ( if they are avid readers here ) that a new AST is not required after the initial one elapses anyway as it goes to periodic.