Updating post from Reddit.
I’ve been using a well-known estate agent to manage my letting, but honestly, the experience has been terrible. They take around 9% of the rent, but it’s been really difficult to get any decent support in return.
Communication is a nightmare – there are multiple departments for different queries, so I never know who to speak to, and I often end up going in circles. The annual reviews are generic and feel like a box-ticking exercise. Any questions I raise rarely get answered properly, and overall, they just come across as uninterested and unhelpful.
I’m seriously considering switching agents. A friend has recommended a local company, and I’m tempted to give them a try. But I’m a bit nervous – is the grass really greener, or are they all just as bad?
Also, how easy is it to get out of a contract with your current agent, especially if the same tenant is staying on? Has anyone been through this?
Would really appreciate hearing your experiences or advice!
Use them for a tenant find, but don't take any other services, get landlord insurance instead, price is slightly less, and it covers you, or if you have some spare time, know tradesmen, and are willing to sort out whatever straight away no matter what else you have going on, then do it yourself
Finally. Another landlord has woken to the fact that agents have no place in the rental system.
OpenRent or alternative is all you need.
You only need to read this or any other related forum to see that agents are not fit for purpose.
How many property do you rent out? If it’s only one and you are close by I would seriously consider doing it yourself.
I first used a chain. They seemed OK, until I double checked some of their work and found that they weren't doing proper checkouts - not sure they even visited the property, and their contractors weren't doing the jobs they were being paid to do.
So swapped to a local firm who were absolutely bloody excellent for 10 years until they got taken over by a chain - the local guys continued to manage my property until a couple of years back when they retired and it was like dropping off a cliff. The people who took over were hopeless with a capital H - like if they had actually been trying to be bad, they couldn't have been worse.
The thing with the chains is they employ youngsters on minimum wage and they are clueless.
A local company may be better, but I advise before signing anything, finding out who will be managing your property and meeting them face to face and chatting to them.
Depends on how much input you want to give, if none, then very good, if you want control over everything they're not very good. Your experience of poor tenants and poor agents will affect this desire of how much control you want.
I only have one (plan to get more). I did do it myself a few years back. But now have 2 small children. And also found kept getting called for petty things. It became too much hassle. So prefer for agent to take on the hassle.
Speaking as a tenant - we find dealing with the agent just as infuriating as you. They rarely reply to me when I raise an issue or ask a question, and when they do agree something they rarely actually follow it up. I'm in the process of finding a new rental as I've had serious complaints recently (extreme noise from a neighbouring tenant, and mould issues) and talking to the agent about it is like pulling teeth. I have to send several emails to get a reply, and when they do reply they just ask me a bunch of questions that were already explained in my original message...
It's annoying because when I do speak to the landlord he seems pretty switched on and helpful. I keep thinking "this would be way easier if I could just speak to him directly". I don't know what the solution is. Either you deal with all the hassle yourself, or both you and the tenant gets a shitty service that nobody is happy with.
IMO "petty things" are either
a) "bodge jobs / low quality items failing / poorly maintained property" - fix them promptly and properly - a tenant reporting these is actually helping you with upkeep.
b) a tenant acting overly entitled - S21 while you still can.
I use small, local independent agents close to where my rentals are (you can walk from the property to the agents in each case). I've been with one for over 20 years and the other for nearly 10. I travel a lot with my job, so offloading the day to day onto an agent works for me.
When I was first looking for an agent, I went round all of them and made my decision based on who I'd want to rent from if I was a tenant. It's proved to work for me. YMMV.
Just to note, the current tenant is out of contract and is on a month by month rolling.
They are mostly all useless. I changed agents 3 times in total and it just went from bad to worse.
Nah, if you can, do it yourself. If you do it properly you'll develop a close relationship with your tenants and they'll love you for it. Create a house WhatsApp chat for them to report any issues.
I've never done it in 15 years not once. I have to find people myself because I don't trust other people to do what's needed. I wouldn't touch an EA for anything other than house selling/buying.
Won't all contracts be rolling tenancy now so even if you have agent find the tenant you won't pay renewal fees each year as there won't be contracts to sign..it will be open ended