Ban on buy to let agency fee's for tenants

steampowered

westernpromise wrote: »

I am not sure what stops the landlord simply requiring the tenant to produce in-date CRB, credit check and employer's references as a condition of letting.

This is a good point.

I think the answer is that if letting agents try to charge landlords hundreds of pounds to do basis reference checks, landlords will either do it themselves or find someone cheaper.

I wonder if a new industry will crop-up of doing pre-rent checks for landlords? No doubt the new players will charge much less than letting agents, because their charges would have to be competitive.

Conrad

steampowered wrote: »

This is a good point.

I think the answer is that if letting agents try to charge landlords hundreds of pounds to do basis reference checks, landlords will either do it themselves or find someone cheaper.

I wonder if a new industry will crop-up of doing pre-rent checks for landlords? No doubt the new players will charge much less than letting agents, because their charges would have to be competitive.

Interesting thought, but I wonder if it would be cheaper, I'm not sure it would.

iantojones40

GreatApe wrote: »

Hopefully with a lower upfront cost more tenants will be able to get into the market and bid up prices....

From this and a few of your other posts I honestly can't tell if you're being permanently ironic or trying to make serious contributions, either way well done for being pretty hilarious... even if it's not intentional.:T

GreatApe

iantojones40 wrote: »

From this and a few of your other posts I honestly can't tell if you're being permanently ironic or trying to make serious contributions, either way well done for being pretty hilarious... even if it's not intentional.:T

It is a simple observation that in many sectors if you reduce the upfront cost you get more demand, for instance how much demand would there be for iPhones if everyone had to pay £700 upfront rather than being able to buy on a £40pm contract?

The same should apply to rentals but the move will be almost undetectable. With lower upfront fees more people will move out sooner from living with their parents or might move out of HMOs into their own rentals. This will push up the clearing price of rents but very likely an undetectable <1% amount.

GreatApe

Conrad wrote: »

Interesting thought, but I wonder if it would be cheaper, I'm not sure it would.

Agents (both rentals and sales) roughly work like this

For a given local market
The top 3 agents do a v.good trade
The next 2 do a good trade

Then there are another 20 or so some with shops some just with offices and some operating out of their garages/living rooms who do crap. In this 20 there might be 10 who are scraping by literally with incomes close to if not below min wage.

Scrapping rental fees will see the bottom sector disappear especially those letting agents who try to do no landlord fees (and earn a crust with letting fees) to attract business


A good number, possibly thousand of people, will lose their jobs from this no agent fees. The result will likely be more business for the top 3 agents in town so although they will have less income from tenant fees they should have a bit more income from having a higher market share.

Crashy_Time

Conrad wrote: »

Interesting thought, but I wonder if it would be cheaper, I'm not sure it would.

Last time I checked obtaining a credit reference cost a couple of quid from two companies, one in Glasgow the other Nottingham, Experian and Equifax is it? Just make it easier to evict people who don`t pay, problem solved.

ViolaLass

westernpromise wrote: »

I remember when we looked around for a rental 10 years ago being shown around various places by Foxtons. Not until we saw one we liked was a fee of about £500 mentioned. We rented elsewhere.

I think the devil with this will be in the detail though. While today's vague and opaque fees should certainly not be allowed, I am not sure what stops the landlord simply requiring the tenant to produce in-date CRB, credit check and employer's references as a condition of letting. There is then no fee per se, and the landlord gets the same comfort as now.

It's not actually a "buy to let agency" fee, though, is it?

Why on earth would a prospective tenant need a CRB check?

westernpromise

ViolaLass wrote: »

Why on earth would a prospective tenant need a CRB check?

Would you let your property to a criminal?

That's why.

Lily-Rose_3

:j:beer:

HOORAY!

About time these agencies were put in their place! :T

When my daughter wanted to rent a shared student house with 4 pals, several years ago, the agent had £275 EACH off them for the admin fee. £1375 for half an hour's work, (printing 5 tenancy agreements, and making half a dozen phone calls.) They didn't even spend any time or postage posting the tenancy agreements or keys; my daughter and her pals had to go in and get them from the property agent's office - along with the keys.

Not many jobs pay 3 grand an hour! Nice eh?! :cool:

GreatApe

Lily-Rose wrote: »

:j:beer:

HOORAY!

About time these agencies were put in their place! :T

When my daughter wanted to rent a shared student house with 4 pals, several years ago, the agent had £275 EACH off them for the admin fee. £1375 for half an hour's work, (printing 5 tenancy agreements, and making half a dozen phone calls.) They didn't even spend any time or postage posting the tenancy agreements or keys; my daughter and her pals had to go in and get them from the property agent's office - along with the keys.

Not many jobs pay 3 grand an hour! Nice eh?! :cool:

that does sound steep but the fees pay for all their overheads and their downtime.

most agents dont make all that much, I think foxtons a high margin agent makes about 30% which means that if they are charging £1000 to a tenant or landlord that £700 of it is cost £300 of it is profit and that is foxtons every other agent will be on lower margins