openrent.co.uk

tom9980

I used the free service too that was enough to find 30 odd applicants. I ended up using the gas safety and servicing for the boiler too because my regular plumber was unavailable. A bit more refinement and i think it will cut out the generally useless agents.

Bluebonnie

Son used openrent to find a flat in Feb 2014, he was very pleased with how it went. Certainly no problem from point of view of tenant.

amandajc

Thanks all. Our usual agent has offered to drop their charges a little because I mentioned that we were thinking of using OpenRent, but they still want £495 plus Vat for the tenant find service which looks as if it would cost £78 with OpenRent. If we go to an unmanaged service we will certainly give OpenRent a try as the studio flat we rent is in a popular area.

We are currently paying £395 initial charges and 12% for a managed service which the agent has offered to drop to £295 plus 10%. It feels like we are paying a lot of money for things we could well do ourselves. I just need to do a bit of reading up on here to make sure I know what would be involved before we make a decision.

(btw the Guardian featured an interesting article about letting agents yesterday. Research has uncovered that less than honest charging practices, in particular "double dipping" - charging both tenant and landlord for the same service, are more common than you would think.)

SerialRenter

If you do decide to go it alone rather than use a managed service. G_M has a very handy guide which goes into detail about all the responsibilities you'll be taking on.

Advice & Information for Landlords

Edit: The article you linked is an interesting read too.