How can I find tenants for my flat?

[parakeet]

Is it possible, as a private landlord, to find tenants without going through an estate agent? My experience with agents as a renter has been appalling. I would really like to cut them out of the process.

I have tried advertising my flat on gumtree and Loot, and not got anyone interested yet. I think I have the price about right. Can anyone recommend any other websites to try?

Thanks for any advice.

Years ago i put an ad in the post office window and got better tenants than the EA arranged for me later on.
I don't have the house any more but if I was to ever let a property again I would not use an agency, money for old rope.

I've used gumtree and myspareroom.co.uk (and next time I will also use tepilo) - both got lots of responses. Is your flat in any way unusual - it seems strange that you haven't had any responses. On gumtree you have to remember to keep bumping your ad to keep it near the top of the listings in its area. I would check that you listed it correctly.

Thank you - I have put it on Tepilo now, and will try ads in local shops too.

I think the fact that you've had no responses from Gumtree suggests that your rent may be too high. Perhaps ask a friend to have a look at the ad and see if there's anything they spot which may be putting people off? Have you had any valuations from agents re rent - costs nothing? Would you consider using an agent to find tenants rather than manage the property and pay a one-off fee, which is possibly cheaper than leaving the property empty and not bringing in any rent? HTH.

I thinks it depends what kind of flat it is. I rent out quite a snazzy 1 bed flat and tried putting it on Gumtree and in a local ads paper and only got responses from people who clearly couldn't really afford it or who initially lied to me about their status/job etc - it was a waste of time. I used an agent to find the tenant in the end(and had to pay 80% of first month's rent as a fee), the tenant also had an admin fee to pay to the agent, but manage the flat myself - this has worked well. Used to rent another flat to students - through the Uni accomodation office (£25 a year for the ad etc) and found tenants when I rented my house once through the ads in my local primary schools monthly newsletter (£1).
Good luck - make sure you take up bank references, do the credit check (lots of companies online) Etc

Yes, we got it valued by agents and have gone for a price slightly LOWER than what they suggested.

This flat is at the higher end of the market (I inherited it in case you're nosy) which I think is making it hard to shift through the usual routes like Gumtree. Students etc. wouldn't be able to afford it. I need to reach rich people and I think they tend to use agents. Anyway, you have given me some good tips which I will try out before going down the agent route.

I would be very wary of getting tenants privately i.e not through an agent in the current ecconmic market.

Purely because an agent will do credit checks, you can pay for a rent guarantee and the agent can arrange the paper work for a guarantor if the tenants circumstances do not enable you to have a rent guarantee.

I speak from bitter experience, previously before the finance world went tits up I rented my house out privately - never had a problem. Tenant moved out, thought as things were; better to get an agent to find me another for the above reasons and thank god I did - now have a tenant who keeps paying late (regardless of previous three yrs of perfect payment history with the agent) and who I have to keep contacting the agent about.

The laws regarding landlords / tenants is very complicated, would rather have someone knowledgeable to talk to if need be.

Lily, do you think that if you had found the tenant you might have been any worse off than you are now? I suspect not.

I used managing agents when we first rented out our flat (pre recession) and had to keep chasing agent to chase rent - absolute rubbish. I now manage it myself. Should the current tenant ever be late with rent I would write to them advising them of breach of their tenancy agreement and make it understood that continued breach would not be tolerated.

Does yours not pay by direct debit?

Thanks for your advice, Lilly, but honestly, it is possible to do all those things yourself: credit checks (£8 on the internet), use a guarantor (there is no extra paperwork, they just sign the contract in the space where it says "guarantor"), and as for a rent guarantee, well that sounds pretty much like landlords insurance to me.