UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello, I'm planning on moving and letting out the property I'm currently living in for a while. I've not let a property before. I'm wondering what is a good approach to finding a decent letting agent to manage it? e.g. are there trustworthy review websites? Are there particularly good questions to ask to identify the better agents?

Full management service is always a swizz.  Always.  They'll make plausible promises until you sign up, then they'll let your property to the first person who walks in the door even if they're blatantly unsuitable, and they'll accept no responsibility for their actions.  You might get an apology but you certainly won't get a refund.

Lettings agents earn between £14,000 and £20,000 a year, for which they work long hours, typically including weekends.  No academic qualifications are necessary, but they do get on the job training.  There's a level 5 qualification offered by the ARLA, which is aimed at the most senior people in the industry and takes an estimated 260 hours of work.  What I'm saying is, these aren't high flyers -- it's a career that's mainly attractive to people who didn't do so well at school.  The quality of the service they offer fully reflects these facts.

Manage your property yourself if humanly possible.  If you just can't, consider selling it.  If you can't do that either, then personally interview every lettings agent in the town, find the one you distrust the least, appoint them, and then hope as hard as you can that that least bad agent sticks with the same employer throughout the tenancy, rather than leaving you with whoever they recruit as a replacement.

"find the one you distrust the least"... lovely. It's nice to read enlightened thinking along these lines.

Quote from: Pagw on August 04, 2019, 07:46:56 PMHello, I'm planning on moving and letting out the property I'm currently living in for a while. I've not let a property before. I'm wondering what is a good approach to finding a decent letting agent to manage it? e.g. are there trustworthy review websites? Are there particularly good questions to ask to identify the better agents?

The comment you have received thus far, and will be echoed by others, is that the idea of finding a Letting Agent to manage it is, in itself, not a very good idea. Likewise, I'd say that playing at property is not a great idea... it's OK for some, but it's complicated, full of hurdles and pitfalls and nowhere near as lucrative as some might think. It works best when you introduce economies of scale (even small multiple properties can make things easier)... just doing it with one makes you an easy mark for an Agent.