J4L Posted May 26, 2007 Report Share Posted May 26, 2007 Hi all, As Newbies on here and to the Letting game we are interested in any Landlords views on how you choose your LA. What is it you Landlords look for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Dewsberry Posted May 26, 2007 Report Share Posted May 26, 2007 Generally - although in life - the past does not equate to the future i would not use an agent without a proven track record together with experience, honesty and integrity a sound knowledge of the "industry" established presence in the market gives both Landlord and Tenant confidence a commitment to find the right tenant for the right property established systems in place for advertising, tenant finding & referencing established tried and tested procedures in place for dealing with "problem" tenants an army of "excellent" tradesman (plumber, central heating engineers, builders, electricians, tilers, decorators, gardeners, odd job men, debt collectors, legal contacts,admin staff - ALL AT THEIR IMMEDIATE DISPOSAL. and surprisingly at the bottom of the list is price ! There you go - that's your advertising manefesto done for you ! See how helpful we are on here - you will of course need to be able to back this lot up ! Personally i have never found an agent who can deliver all of the above which is why i manage my own portfolio. No one is ever going to put the same effort or care for my business as much as i do - i think you will find a lot of Landlords feel the same way ! Do i have all of th above ? Yes and a whole lot more - Like we have a van and move people in and out of rented properties as well also store their belongings when neccessary. Being an agent is not just about setting up a Standing order to collect rent and finding ridiculous ways of overcharging Landlords for unnecessary work every month as a lot of Agents seem to think!!! Cynical? Just my personal experience - but i do spend a large amount of time dealing with both Landlords and Agents in the course of running my business every day. Simon What you reckon Mark??!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J4L Posted May 26, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 26, 2007 a proven track record - Everyone has to start somewhere and usually I find new starters in a business give a whole lot more than poor agents who are just playing with the market. together with experience, honesty and integrity - yeh I agree a sound knowledge of the "industry" - again experience can't be bought so in your eyes us 'newbies' have no chance I guess. We'll have to watch this space I think. established presence in the market gives both Landlord and Tenant confidence - this also takes time a commitment to find the right tenant for the right property - and the right Landlord for the tenant presumably established systems in place for advertising, tenant finding & referencing - good point established tried and tested procedures in place for dealing with "problem" tenants - goes without saying and surprisingly at the bottom of the list is price ! For you maybe, but It would be interesting to see what others think. Thanks for your comments, we will take them all on board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melboy Posted May 26, 2007 Report Share Posted May 26, 2007 Hello J4L Is your new letting agency purely internet based or are you located in a prominent high street position? Mel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted May 26, 2007 Report Share Posted May 26, 2007 Hi fans, I, like Simon do not use letting agents. My reasons are as follows: Longer voids, in my experience, short as it is, is that Letting agents will take a lot longer to get the room rented. This is mainly due to their pricing structures. They don't really care if it takes 1 week or 2 months to get the room rented, they still get the same money. The charges are unrealistic in the current climate. It is easy to find tenants, so why pay 500 pounds for one and then 500 every six months when I could find one free of charge. The time-consuming thing is all the tenant-related-maintenance. Most letting agents are slimey and drive nice cars, they must be paid too much, or the company is making too much to pay for them to have such nice cars. This gives me the choice of using letting agent and putting up with the above or.....put 1 ad in Gumtree, show 10 people around the next day, reference the tenant (20 pounds not the 60 LA like to charge) and they move in the next week, probably saving me 1.5K per annum on a one bed flat. It's such an easy choice. I feel the fee structures need to be more up-to-date and fair with penalties when properties are not let, I feel half of the rent should be paid to landlord for every week not let by the LA, this will mean both Landlord and letting agent lose out if property not let. Until then I will do it myself, or get 1 individual I trust to do it. Ciao, Mat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J4L Posted May 27, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Hi Mel, Internet based at the moment although we live in the town we are concentrating on. This is purely for financial reasons for now. We are looking at high street shops but think it may be a few months before we can afford somewhere. This is because we are not planning on making anything for at least 6 months or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J4L Posted May 27, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Hi Mat, Interesting reading this. Let me defend Letting Agents (well ours anyway). I don't see the point of taking my time in letting properties out. Our aim is to have a property tenanted within 4 weeks of taking it on. This gives us time to advertise it properly, run through our database of tenants and make sure LL's get the right tenant, and hopefully reducing the chance of any voids. Obviously if it Lets quicker then that's a bonus. I can only see that your £500 figure comes from the Agent finding the tenant and then a monthly charge. If you are not (because you mention paying ANOTHER £500 6 months later) then you really are either looking in the wrong place or the agents are ripping everyone off around your area. I won't go into our charge structure (because Simon may accuse me of using this post to advertise haha) but can I assure you, the reason we set this up is because we feel there is a market for it locally because so many people locally are getting ripped off by agents. Suffice to say, if LL's want us to find them a tenant we'll charge a one off fee! If they want a managed service we will charge a set fee. I'm not interested in charging them again 6 months down the road if the tenant is staying. Why should I? Unless of course they need new agreements and the such drawn up and then we will only charge for the work we do. Nowhere near £500. As you suggest, the tenant related maintenance is the time consuming part and if LL's want to do that part then that's their prerogative. 'Most letting agents are slimy' This is a fantastic description and certainly made me smile. Again though, this is your opinion and I don't think I'm slimy at all. I'm just a normal guy who wants to uplift the reputations of Letting Agents and give Landlords and Tenants a great service for a great price. 'and drive nice cars, they must be paid too much' - Again a smile came to my face. Yeh I've got a nice motor but as you are all aware We've only just kicked this off so this business has certainly not paid me anything yet or is paying for the car. My problem with society these days is that we all tend to judge a book by it's cover. Nobody knows me, they have no idea of my history and shouldn't judge where my money came from to afford this car. For your benefits only, I have a very successful business elsewhere which affords me the luxury of a nice standard of living. (Surely this is a GOOD thing for LL's in my area as I'm really not in this for the money) We will also be advertising on Gumtree, and many other internet business directories plus the local press. 'I feel the fee structures need to be more up-to-date and fair with penalties when properties are not let, I feel half of the rent should be paid to landlord for every week not let by the LA, this will mean both Landlord and letting agent lose out if property not let.' - Well on the 1st read this has brought the biggest smile to my face. I don't know if you were joking on this one or not. Can I assure you that newspaper advertising costs a fortune. I think the CHEAPEST I've come across is about £500/page. And these are weekly papers. So comparitively, your £1500 saving pa wouldn't even get you a months' advertising if you were an agent. What if I advertise for a fortnight and get no takers?? You think the LL's would go half with me?? I don't think so. As you can see from my sig below we are offering free management for 3 months. . . and so on. The LA's locally are sh**ting themselves already and I've only advertised this once, this week. and where everyone else charges 10% monthly for management, the most I'm gonna charge is 7.5%. Luckily, I'm in a position to not have to rely on this for income so really am not too bothered if we only break even for 6 months. Personally I think LL's will look at our service and thank us, plus I'm sure the other LA's will have to step up their game won't they? Well hopefully anywyay. One of my main reasons for doing this aswell is that I feel tenants get a real rough ride from LL's and LA's. Our intention is to treat them properly and not speak down to them as a lot do. Believe me, I understand that there are cr*p tenants out there and we're ready for them! We won't take any sh*t but there are also a lot of good tenants that are human beings as we are, struggling along in life, working hard and trying to get by. These will be treated as such. Thanks for taking the time to post your comments so far guys, keep em coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wanderer1825 Posted May 27, 2007 Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Hi J4L Like you I am about to set up a letting agency after much reading and studying. Several months ago my son and his girlfriend looked for a flat to let. I was surprised by the unprofessional attitude and high charges of some agents.(One agency wanted £150 admin fee per person) Although I must say some agents seemed to be quite good and knowledgeable. Like you I consider myself to be honest and reliable, so I decided to set up an agency. My charges will be lower than the high street guys as I don't need to earn an immediate income. My main aim is to provide a reliable and friendly service to all concerned. Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J4L Posted May 27, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Hi Tony, What a breath of fresh air it is to read your post. Let's hope we can both bring some sanity to the lettings market and some professionalism to this already dampened industry. Hopefully Tenants and Landlords will be kicking our doors down to instruct us!! Can I ask what area you are thinking of operating in Tony?? Are you going to be competition haha? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wanderer1825 Posted May 27, 2007 Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 West Midlands area, Wolverhampton,Birmingham etc. Lots of agencies here but lots of business as well. Hope to launch within the next two weeks. It seems to have taken me ages to set up, but I'm nearly there now. Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J4L Posted May 27, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Good for you, Good luck with it all. Do you need or have a website?? Check ours out it's brand new and I have interests in a seperate company that built it and canhelp you out if needed. Gareth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted May 27, 2007 Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Fair doos it all sounds good J4L, my point is, who looks through the news papers to rent a place these days, nobody should be paying 500 for an ad. I think everybody should only advertise when the cost is low, 20 pounds per ad max I'd say. I just don't think they are value for money otherwise. As more and more people use sites like Gumtree, and more and more landlords & letting agents use it, it will remove the need to pay in the future as everybody will know where to look to rent a place, the sort of dominance Rightmove has in the buying/selling market at the moment. It was a point I forgot to mention, I feel letting agents rip-off off tenants which really annoys me. 100 pounds admin fee at start of contract and another 100 pounds every six months. I have been charged this before when I was renting. We also see on here where every renewal of contract the letting agent charges the landlord. This is how all the animosity for letting agents has been created. I have always championed for a clarity, something letting agents don't do, as they know people wouldn't go with them if they knew at the start. I now make a point when advertising that tenants are saving huge amounts of money by avoiding letting agents, I pay for referencing, don't charge them for anything other than rent, pay them 50 pounds if they extend their contract and offer 200 pounds free cash at the end of the tenancy based on some criteria being met. Good luck to you, I think it's about time there were some decent guys in the letting business. Ciao! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J4L Posted May 27, 2007 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 The £500 ads are for full pages where you can probably get 20 or 30 properties advertised per week. Nice mention of rightmove, my plan is to approach all the local agents and charge them for advertising on our site. It won't be anywhere near as expensive as the local press so hopefully will benefit them. My plan for market dominance has started haha. Seriously though I don't have a problem with competition, I think it's healthy. Many of the local agents would stab you in the back as soon as look at you if they think you're going to take a piece of the pie. My aim is to get all the agents talking and communicating with each other. I don't see the locals as competition at all going on their past performances. It should be a doddle. If they don't choose to talk then that will prove to be their downfall. I did this a few years ago with a Nursing Agency and turned over £1.47m in my 1st year. It was easy. We just changed the way others already did stuff. And now?? Yeh they all copy us!! haha 'I feel letting agents rip-off off tenants which really annoys me. 100 pounds admin fee at start of contract and another 100 pounds every six months. I have been charged this before when I was renting. ' Let's put this into perspective, I think £100 is a fair fee for a tenant starting out. Look at the referencing checks, the inventory, the drawing up of the AST, the checking in procedures etc etc. The time, effort, and cost of this does reflect the effort and work that goes into getting a tenant somewhere to live. As for the repeat of this 6 months down the line? Well I don't agree with that at all and we won't be charging anywhere near that! 'We also see on here where every renewal of contract the letting agent charges the landlord. This is how all the animosity for letting agents has been created. I have always championed for a clarity, something letting agents don't do, as they know people wouldn't go with them if they knew at the start.' Again I don't agree with this, we will only be charging for time and costs to renew tenancy etc and no hidden extras. 'I now make a point when advertising that tenants are saving huge amounts of money by avoiding letting agents, I pay for referencing, don't charge them for anything other than rent, pay them 50 pounds if they extend their contract and offer 200 pounds free cash at the end of the tenancy based on some criteria being met.' I really like your ideas here and I'm going to investigate these and see if we can offer similar incentives! Thanks for your positive comments. Gareth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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