Landlords' Feedback

Pabloed55

Thanks for the replies, have been away with work so taken a while to get reading them.

I have seen the rent guarantee schemes offered by other agencies but it is basically all provided by the same insurance company, Homelet. Like many others I would wonder how guaranteed it could possibly be.

What we are also thinking about is not about finding a tenant - i think most landlords are well able to stick adverts in local papers and i think what agencies charge for doing this and then supposedly checking people out for you, is ridiculous, particularly when those people often end up trashing the place.

What we are thinking about is the actual management of the asset i.e. the property. Tenants come and go but it is the property that has the value. We have a lot of contacts in relevant sectors and are also qualified to do a lot of works ourselves - plus we would be looking at a fixed charge per month, not a percentage charge.

it interests me as I think there are maybe a lot of people out there who really cannot be bothered managing a property for the hassle it gives. Some won't mind, but others wouldn't mind paying 30 quid a month, provided the service is good.

Paul

smokiewater

We have just given our latest lot of tenants their notice, and I think they will be our last tenant, from our experience property management agents are not great!

We changed to a different agent this time, a well established Enniskillen company, we have yet to see the tenants references or contract but afew weeks of them in the house has been enough to convince us they are trouble - think we will let our house out as a holiday let from now on.

Our last management agent sent someone out to change the locks it cost us £200 for 2 doors! The current company only phones us to say this needs done or that needs done, which at least saves us money as we can send someone in ourselves, and they do hold a key in their office so that workmen can collect it easily which is handy - but our experience is that management agents are fine when things are going well but hopeless when there are problems. I rang ours a week ago to ask for advice about problems with the new tenants, and he said I don't know - what do you think? If I knew what to do myself I wouldn't have phoned him in the first place!

moan over

Pabloed55

Tend to agree about the agents - there is too much conflict of interest in them finding a tenant in order to get their fee. Personally, I think Landlord's are more capable of judging who is suitable. Having had experience of having to go to court to get a tenant out - I know how difficult it can be - we're not interested in doing the tenant finding stuff - just the management.

smokiewater

Pabloed55 wrote: »

Tend to agree about the agents - there is too much conflict of interest in them finding a tenant in order to get their fee. Personally, I think Landlord's are more capable of judging who is suitable. Having had experience of having to go to court to get a tenant out - I know how difficult it can be - we're not interested in doing the tenant finding stuff - just the management.

We are based in Belfast now and the house is outside Enniskillen, with Nov & Dec our busiest time of year, we accepted the agents judgement - this was obviously a mistake. But we are not the only absentee landlords so I think there is a good market for agents to take more responsibility