Recommended letting agent in Oxford?

[MinnieBar]

We have a house in East Oxford that we let out, and the tenants are due to move out in May. We've been using Chancellors and they're ok, but not great, so I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of other letting agents that they would recommend?

Thanks!

I've heard good things about Finders Keepers & Scott Fraser.

Thanks - I did have a meeting with FindersKeepers when I first thought about letting it out, and the woman was incredibly snooty, and dismissive, and generally horrible, but it might be worth another go.

Will check out Scott Fraser...

We were tenants through Scott Fraser, so the other side, but we rent out property in another part of the country. I liked their attitude about finding the right tenant for the property, not just getting the first people in. We very much felt that we were being sussed out when we viewed properties.
I think finders keepers like to think of themselves as a bit special. A lot of their properties are gorgeous.

I would describe our house as average, rather than gorgeous - good location, good number of bedrooms and off-street parking are the things that make it desirable really - but it has been rented out for a number of years and isn't pristine. Tenants don't always take care of the garden, for example - which is fine - but it doesn't look like a show home by any means!

I'm getting pickier with my tenants the longer I do this - 'young professionals' have been worse than students IMHO!

Having been a young professional & a student, I would have to agree

We rent and found the property through finders keepers. They do have quite good coverage but I didn't find them very good.
Very little knowledge about the property and area and their fees for tenants are just ridiculous.
Really wish there was an easy way for landlords to rent privately to tenants as would much rather deal direct.

Having used FK as a tenant and as a landlord, I can't recommend them for either. Snooty is putting it mildly; one of the director's actually hung up on me once (just for me asking why my deposit still hadn't been refunded 4 weeks after we moved out - she told me they'd do it "when they were ready").

Recently I've let my properties myself, using Gumtree and Dailyinfo and Visum who can advertise it on rightmove for you. Depends if you're willing to do the viewings yourself and then manage the let though.

I did use Scott Fraser once and they were fine but I couldn't sing their praises as such.

Glad I'm not the only one who really doesn't rate FK.

Ooh that's interesting. My gut instinct is that I'd be a bit scared to do it completely alone as at least agents can run credit checks etc. Hmmm!

The house has a pond - it's brick-surround, so very much an in-built feature. Snooty cow from FK said 'Well of course you'd have to fill it in if a family with a young child were to rent.'
Me: But wouldn't that be up to them to decide if they wanted to live somewhere with a pond?
Snooty cow: Yes, but if something were to happen you wouldn't want that on your conscience now would you? WOULD YOU?
Me: Er, no, but?
Snooty cow cuts me off and estimates a stupidly low rent. Next agent's estimate is practically double and they were nice to me and didn't treat me like a small child. Guess who I went with?!

In the unlikely event that anyone is interested in an update...

Well, basically I had too much other stuff on and didn't get my arse in gear to properly research other letting agents before the existing guys were already starting to show it, so I just let them carry on. They have been a bit crap again about a few things, but they have found some new tenants already, so when we were discussing their percentage I jokingly said 'I'd prefer a lower rate!' - I didn't even mean to say it, it just kind of popped out of my mouth - and the guy went, 'er, er, I'd have to discuss it with my boss but I'm sure that'd be fine' - end result, I have a whopping 1% reduction in monthly agents' fees.

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as they say...