Renting without an Agent

evr

Hi Everyone,
I am considering renting out my mortaged house as I am going to be working abroad for a while. The rental prices in our area should just cover mortgage payments but the huge fees that I have recently found out Agents charge would leave me at a loss. I dont want to sell yet, does anyone have any advise or suggestions on trying to rent the house out by myself without an agent and just going through a solicitor for any legal agreements?

Looking forward to any kind advice from anyone with experiance of this.
Thank you

Incisor

evr wrote: »

... I am considering renting out my mortaged house as I am going to be working abroad for a while. The rental prices in our area should just cover mortgage payments but the huge fees that I have recently found out Agents charge would leave me at a loss. I dont want to sell yet, does anyone have any advise or suggestions on trying to rent the house out by myself without an agent and just going through a solicitor for any legal agreements?

It might be a good time to sell up?

But if you want to keep the property, don't view the fact that the agent's fees and your mortgage are less than the rent as being a loss. It is just a much better deal than leaving the house empty. You could look at other agents? I suspect the advice here for first time LLs is to use an agent.

Bungarm2001

First time LL...my advice always is use a GOOD letting/estate agent. Look for one who belongs to a professional body like ARLA. Give them full management and leave them to it. You know it makes sense...just read on here some of the pitfalls an amateur LL will come
across and how many regulations you are bound by.

You can't look upon letting out your property/home as a way of paying your mortgage...it's lucky if the net rent after expenses will do this, but not in my experience. You have to treat the whole exercise as a way of PARTLY paying your mortgage. You'll get nowhere if you don't.

By the way, don't forget to tell youtr mortgage lender what you are proposing, and also whoever covers your buildings insurance as this will change according to the type of tenant.

Snooze

Personally I wouldn't use an agent as they're all useless and just fleece you for your money with they sit on their !!!!!! doing f-all.

Just stick an ad in the local rag on 'property' day and go from there. That's where I've had the best success anyway.

Rob

SquatNow

The agents will definately fleece you.

Running the letting yourself while abroad will definately be a nightmare.

Interest rates may rise again so the rent doesn't cover the mortgage.

Things in the house may break and need repairing.

You could have missed rent payments or voids.

Your bank may point out that you need to change to a BTL mortgage with higher interest rates and lower LTV rations.

Basically, it's a bad time to become a landlord.

Sell the house, take the money and run.

chappers

I can't believe it but I am in almost total agreement with squatnow.
if you were renting the house, whilst still in the country there is no reason to do it yourself(after some extensive research). However doing it from abroad leaves you open to all sorts of problems, with maitenace and non payment of rent just being the start of it.
You are legally obliged to have a UK adress through which you can be contacted and not doing this through an agent could be problematic.