agent or private let?

[traveller]

Hello,

My partner and I plan to go travelling for a year and want to rent our terrace house out. Would you recommend doing it all through an agency, or is it better to try and work it out privately?

I was wondering just how much help agents are!

Thanks in advance.

[Preston]

Hi

This question crops up quite often on various threads. There are some enthusiastic exponents of agents who contribute to this site and no doubt they will give you a different view, but I'm afraid I'm generally not very impressed with the knowledge or professionalism of most agents. As an example, the area manager for a large national chain of agents recently said to me that "the deposit protection rules arent law, they are just regulations, so you dont need to worry if you are late protecting the deposit". Needless to say the potential delay was due to her company's incompentence and slowness in forwarding the monies they had collected at tenancy commencement.

My own approach, then, is to use agents for tenant finding only and to do the rest myself. But I do have a bit of background in landlord and tenant issues and I have contacts I can draw on if I hit problems. You have to decide whether you are prepared to do the work yourself - including alot of research at the start - and whether you will know when to ask for help. If you feel confident, my advice would be to go for it and if you really want a bit of protection, spend your money on some legal protection or other insurances rather than on agents fees.

Good luck

Preston