Whats your experience -renting out a house

de_g.

ognum wrote: »

I am also happy with my current agents and have good service from them but believe anything above 10% is way too much. I would only ever use an idependent agent and ditched my last agents when they sold up to a large national agency and their service became tied up with what the management said could or could not be done.

That extra 2.5% is roughly a tenner a month, so in the context of my situation not really worth arguing over. I intend know exactly what the local market rate is, but I've one property bring let at a little over £400pcm so even at that percentage they're making little profit off letting my house in monetary terms.

holly_hobby

I've been a landlord, and whilst my tenants were great (apart from hating mowing the garden !!), I always ensured I had landlords contents ins - which means that any broken sanitary ware, wrecked decoration, etc is covered, and you've one less thing to fret about.

Of course, due dilgence before you rent out is the way to go, and thats were the benefit of letting agts for refs, and a watertight AST, come in.

Whilst I have had no bad experiences, I do personally know peeps whom have had real nightmares , and in one situ the tenants were University Profs whom left the house requiriing fumigating an Dynorod out ! (I kid you not !).

As stated by others, you will need to take your heart out of this, as not everyone will treat their home as you would .... to which alwasys having landlords ins is a no-brainer (and tax deductable off your rental income).

Hope this helps

Holly

Fuzzyness

we ended up letting our house out 5 years ago when i was made redundant and had to move to another part of the country for work. in the five years we've been doing it we've certainly learnt a lot and only now are we fairly relaxed about the whole process in terms of our responsbilities and being able to absorb repairs/breakdowns etc. as well as tax considerations.

i think we've been very luck in that in the five years we've been doing it we've only had two tenants. good long term tenents are a landlords dream. they look after the house, report problems and in our case due to location organise repair men to come out etc. i'd say if you're going to do it, go in with an open mind. it can be rewarding but just expect that first call informing you something is wrong and needs fixing. it isnt pleasant and you know its going to cost you. get used to that and you might be alright.

little-spender

Hi


thanks for the advice, i am sure I will get back to you all with more things as they come