Where do you find private landlords?

[ffon]

Am about to try looking for a new rental and have read some threads advising renting from a private landlord and not through a letting agent.
Have looked on Facebook and local gumtree but there's barely anything.
How do you find one?
Also would you recommend doing this, how do you know whether the landlord is any good?

Newspapers - the back of your local one, in the ads. The only time dh and I rented (11 years ago mind), we rented directly from the landlord and just responded to an ad he put in the paper.

No credit checks obviously...he did mention on our first meeting that he would ask for references, but by the time we were moving in he'd obviously decided he liked us well enough and told us not to bother.

Some landlords are decent and some are rubbish even with using an agent - personally I wouldn't see it as any increased risk on that front. We knew next to nothing but it all seemed legit - a proper rental contract, a survey (done by him, which we had to sign and agree to) of what was in the flat and the conditions of the furniture etc.

You don't say what area you're in Op, but try looking on www.openrent.co.uk/?gclid=CLeO5ZeY5s4CFQWVGwod4tcDhg

Start with the government how to rent booklet which details what a landlord should do.

Deposit protection, epc, gas safe, inventory etc etc et

My OH is a private LL and he advertises through letting a property.com which goes onto rightmove, zoopla facebook etc.
Somedaybaby- we still do credit checks, they cost £15 and take approx 24 hours.
We dont charge for referencing check in/out so no costs to the tenant unlike going through an agent.
We also offer lower rent as don't have to pay 10% to agents each month.
We had two tenants through an agent and both were trouble, one owed us 10k before the court evicted him another trashed our house and won through the DPS :(
Since then we refuse to use an agent and pick our tenants on our gut instincts.
If someone is late for a viewing, is bolshy or arrogant, is negative in the viewing or demanding, doesn't respond quickly to getting their application in then we simply don't rent to them.

This is who we use- mostly private land lords.

www.lettingaproperty.com/

Thank you.
birdy I've registered on that site now. Only one property in my area at the moment and it's not big enough but something else may come up.

Enrique thank you I have registered on that site now too.