Renting: how to find a good agent (as a tenant)?

PasturesNew

Not sure where you live, but when I looked to rent somewhere there were only 1-2 agents that had places to rent in the areas I wanted and at a price I could afford.

I was looking at the properties first, then contacting the agent.

Most agents only had 0-1 of the right sort in the right place, so I couldn't "find a good agent" and go with them anyway.

HouseHunter9

Thanks very much everyone.

I'm lucky in that I'm able to stay with family until I find somewhere suitable so I'd rather take my time and research it rather than go with a dodgy agent just because they've got something available now.

nzseries1

I've always rented through private listings in the paper, Gumtree, etc, rather than through an agent.

The first time I tried to rent through an agent, I found a place but got messed around for weeks with all sorts of excuses until they finally said "sorry, the landlord has decided to sell instead". That was in 2007.

In July, I thought "surely all agents won't mess me around", so I went to another agent to enquire about renting a property which had just been listed on the internet in the last 30 minutes. I went there, viewed the property, and went straight back to the agent's office to sign papers and pay the deposit as it was great. Went back four days later with my documents and first month's rent, only to be told "sorry, the landlord has decided to rent to someone else". If that were true, which I don't believe it was, they could have at least called me about it.

Each time when I expressed my disgust, I was told "umm... it's not our fault". Excuse me... it is! It's certainly not my fault!

That, coupled with insanely high fees for tenants (they were happy to charge me two weeks rent as a fee for all of 2 hours' work, but couldn't even spare 20p for a quick phone call to tell me the deal fell through), and demands for documents with little time to provide them (you want a written copy of my credit report, and you want me to get it in three days? Not bl0ody likely!) means I will never, ever, ever, ever rent through an agency again - even if it does reduce my choices of property by 75%.

It just all proved that the agent doesn't give two hoots about you - if they don't rent to you, they'll rent to some other mug in no time flat (well, here in London that's true!)

Possibly an over-reaction on my part, but with a private landlord and a deposit protection scheme, I have never had one single problem in 11 years of renting privately and never paid one penny in fees.

carolt

Lots of dodgy private landlords too - ie ones too cheapskate to rent through an agency.

Best advice is to ask the current tenants (where there are any) - try to view in the evenings, when the EA on't usually accompany you, and ask frank questions about how they've found the landlord and letting agent, if any. Don't underestimate how unpleasant a nightmare landlord can be. This should feature in your decisions on where to rent at least as highly as the state of the property itself.

Never rent anywhere where previous tenants suggest the landlord is 'difficult'.