anyone tried renting their house without using agents?

[dizzydo]

Given up with our agents they seem to do nothing and never return my calls. I am going to try and rent it out myself. Has anyone had any success going it alone? How did you do it? Best places to advertise etc? Any guidance/tips would be very much appreciated.

luckily we have quite a small community, so word of mouth was enough to get tennants we knew in.

probably start with the local paper however and draw up a basic contract, i think there are some on line.

I am worried about putting it in the local paper as you dont know who you will get. Did you do credit checks nightshade?

erm...be careful as MIl did this with a small house, they ended up with squatters they took over a year to evict, a woman and two kids. she advises against doing it alone as the legal issues can be terrible and long-term, so if you need the income from the rent to survive I wouldnt risk it. Just find another agency?

at the end of the day, a credit check is not necessarily going to guarantee that someone pays.

we went on the thought that the deposit was akin to a monthe rent, so that gave us a a month to follow up rent if needs be. there have been no problems however.

i know a lot of people don't like dhss tennents, but the benefit with this is that you always get paid via the housing executive (presumably local authority in your area).

references from last landlord or a telephone number to contact them, and a face to face meeting with prospective tennants will tell a lot, and this is really no more than an agent does.

it also doesn't cost much more to transfer your buildings insurance to cover tenants.

My landlady rented our house to us privately. She did credit checks, asked for references from 2 previous landlords and even met my DP's parents. I know that there is a website somewhere that can help you do this as she provides a contract provided by them.
However she did have problems in the past and had to evict a problem tenant and go through the courts to get her money back!

that's a good point nightshade re deposit. The last time we rented it out the agents took 2 months' deposit I think. I guess that would deter people who were not going to pay the rent as it is a fair amount of money to find. I know that it is a risk anyway even if agents find you someone.

i think you can tell a lot from how many imes someone has moved.

our tenants had been in the same house for 15yrs and were looking for another long term situ. something that suites us well.

oh lucky you, a long term renter takes the pressure off sooo much. We would be stuffed if we had to pay our mortgage for more than a couple of months at most and to get someone who stayed for two or more years would be fantastic (and 15 Well!!!) I am going to put a list of questions together. Definitely worth finding out previous landlord references and how long they have stayed. Do you let furnished or unfurnished nightshade.

technically furnished. dh's house, it was full of some bits andbobs thatwe just left when moving to mine.

tenants were quite happy to keep/dispose of what was there.

We rent at the moment and found we were looking for ages to find a house. Best place to advertise is on Rightmove.co.uk - this is where agents tell you to look, but I don't know how you get a house on there if you aren't an agent. The site should tell you though

For references, as we had just sold a house there weren't any landlord references available, so the (useless) agents spoke to DH's work (HR team, just to confirm he did work there and his salary), and personal referees for both of us (presumably to check ID). You could ask to see 3 months pay slips or bank statements to confirm income as well.

Agents can be costly and useless, I would try and go it alone if possible.

Oh, and get passport or driving licence copies as well to check ID

thanks mad that's very helpful. Will check out rightmove. Agents useless IMO