Agents are mediocre people doing a mediocre job, who should have stayed in school rather than fallen into this job, where they fundamentally don't care about who rents your property, inflate repair costs for their own benefit, and so on.

Self management is super easy. Like, child's play.

Personally I use an agent for finding a tenant, and I have the final say. I CBA to take a couple of days off work to watch a procession of hopeless candidates trudge through. Let the agent find the diamond in the rough and draw up the paperwork.

Once they're in, never hear anything generally.

It's a nice looking platform, but fundamentally doesn't change anything. I self manage so only use an agency for finding tenants, referencing etc. Industry cost is around 7% for this, around one month's rent. This obviously includes them handling the viewings communications etc. which is the most expensive part. Think about a tenant that's accepted an offer but not signed the agreement. So what your app notifies me that's the case? I need someone to speak to the tenant and find out are they going to sign the paperwork, if there are issues, and feel them out to see if they are wasting time.

Your platform isn't offering that but charging 5%?

I agree fully that estate agents are on the whole mostly incompetent greedy subhumans, that take all the reward, with none of the risk, but until the robots can handle the viewings and chasing up then your platform is taking on the likes of openrent, which is long established and positively reviewed from my limited interactions with it.

Good luck with it though. Competition is a good thing.

I only have 1 at the moment and I self manage and it works really well, however I do live relatively close. If i was to have 10 plus I would probably start using an agent or if I moved away

If you're actually hoping to make a profit, and treat being a landlord like the actual business that it is, requiring your time and attention, then spending some of that slim margin on 3rd parties (including fancy websites) and farming out everything particular and sensitive about your own business to other people is not on the agenda. I see using a managing agent as something you do largely if you're some clueless 'accidental' who probably still has a mortgage on the property, got a 'consent' letter and just wants to shut their eyes and pretend it doesn't exist for a few years before they clock the house prices haven't ballooned, try sell it anyway, and find out what a S21 really entails and how much the smiley agent really knows and cares.... if you're getting a decent deal from a management setup you probably have a spread of outright owned assets and were able to negotiate, and have better things to do by that point, so the value of time outweighs the cost.

I’ve been a letting agent, however, having those skills I manage my own properties.

Used estate agent once.

Literally every single step they could have made a mistake on, they did.

And I got a shit tenant because they imparted none of the f2f cues.

Never again.

Everybody is different, has a different amount of properties, different distances, different amount of free time, different DIY abilities etc. I’ve done both. Started self managing initially as I had more free time, as that free time has been taken up I’ve started passing them on, more so until the new rules come in place and we see how they actually pan out. I can no longer drop everything to focus on an issue, or travel to a property to view/fix arrange a fix, I just don’t have the time. In 10-15 years I anticipate I will have the time again, and will start self managing again. It really is free money for agents when the tenants are good, I know that.

The total cost in terms of cost savings in addition to improved service for both landlord and tenant makes it well worth the effort.

EAs not only charge exorbitant prices, but provide bad service. I do much better than them in terms of my tenants and provide myself with a much better service than they can. I am paying myself what I save on their fees and I get better tenants. I have had zero issues over ten years of letting, not even a late rent. My costs are lower since I do some repairs myself and manage my tradespeople well with no agent-uplifts or kickbacks, and my tenants are happy since I take care of them.

There was a learning curve and I had to invest in sourcing services I need and in my leases, notices etc., but now it's down to minimal effort.

Win-win all around.

We have 2 properties and use an agent. They are excellent. In 10 years both properties have been let 99% of the time, excellent tenants and they sort out legals and repairs etc that I don't have the time or frankly the interest to bother with.

I know them at a personal level which helps I guess but they simply do what they charge me for, I'm happy to pay them.

Complete dishonesty, greed, incompetence that can get you inti legal trouble and stupidity and do not care a damn attitude plus very rude and ignorant. Rental law is now a minefield. I do not even take a deposit anymore. I see in cost of cleaning mending and refurbishment between tenancies. You have 24 hours to do it. Old tenants leave at noon and new ones in after noon next day.You must choose your tenant carefully and ask “would I like to invite this person into my home for supper?” If answer is no then do not bother. Go with your gut. My solicitor gave me the advice to never house women as they can get pregnant and you cannot get them out. Students are. fine as they leave.

I had three properties. I used agents for finding and vetting tenants but other than that, I managed them all. Once you find electricians, plumbers and people who fix appliances, it's easy enough. For some reason, tradespeople seem to be quite keen on working with landlords rather than private tenants and there seem to be people who only work on rentals. All the agents are going to do is ring them anyway. One plumber told me that some agencies add 50% to his bill before passing then on to the landlord.

Also, if you establish a good relationship with your tenant, they're more likely to stay and to look after the property.

Some agents add value for relatively low cost, others charge a ton of money to make your life more difficult.

If there was a management company that included some basic handy man services in the fee then that would make it more attractive, but I'm not paying £150+ a month for them to not be able to do anything but spend £100 of my money to pay someone to do the simplest of fixes. Like a tenant didn't know how to turn on a light and they were going to get an electrician to figure out how to turn the light on.