Landlords/ladies advice

[beebuzzer]

We are renting out our house in Mnachester for the second year running.
Last year our agent did a disappearing act so we lost tenants deposits and had to pay them back out of our own money. (but thats another story!)Otherwise the tenants were really great and had no problems living there for the whole year.

Is it worth paying an agent to manage a property or not? It doesnt seem as though they do that much to be honest and if we had no problems last year should we just manage it ourselves again?

I wondered also.....this new agency agreement I am just filling in says we should pay them £250 upfront to arrange checks for us. We already have the EPC and just need them to do a gas cert for us,but they also say we need an electrical one. (when I spoke to the agent last week she said that was optional??)

Thanks!

The electrical cert is not compulsory, some housing associations etc insist on them, but if you are renting privately you don't need one. If you have got good tenants already I would absolutely not use an agent, total waste of money.

We occasionally use them to find tenants, but that's it, all the rest of it is a joke.

Thanks Hully. Actually my husband said we already have the electrical one so thats not an issue.

we only use agents if we can't find anyone ourselves - did it once. bit pointless if you can find people yourself unless you live a long way away and can't easily manage property.

to get a landlords gas certificate and service is around £75 here. so £250 seems a bit wasteful.

the deposit should be lodged with one of the proper online schemes - think the gov does one and there's a free one.

Where do you advertise for people though dreaming ? I think we need to use them to get tenants this time as we live down near London (although my husband knows people he can get out if something goes wrong) Seems such a huge waste of money though (£400 +) just to find a tenant. Once I get more into the know I would like to do it all myself.

in the local paper normally. sometimes you get loads of enquiries and other weeks no decent ones at all - it varies and there's no logic to it. obviously include anything that makes it stand out - for example, our house is on a popular estate. we always meet the tenants and i always phone up and check their references - though its still hard to work out who's going to be good and who will cause you problems.

you also need to think about who's going to visit the house and check its not being trashed periodically

You can use an agent to advertise, but manage it yourself.

It costs us half a month's rent plus VAT for the tenant-finding and credit reference with the agents we use - we use two, and whichever one finds a suitable tenant first, gets paid.

But if you can find and credit-check a tenant easily, plus are available (or have someone available) to show people around, then no need to employ an agent.

We write in the contract that we will inspect every two months - that's a chance for the tenant to raise any issues as well as for you to check the property isn't being trashed/used as a cannabis-growing factory!

We've never used an agent to manage it - but we live close to our rental property and dh is very good at house repairs/maintenance when needed.