Is the Letting market healthy at the moment?

[claraquitetirednow]

We are trying to let out our house but getting very few viewings and I am trying to work out whether the agency we are with is just crap or whether the market isn't as good as I thought it should be (given what's going on with the housing market generally).

It's a lovely family house with a garden, off-road parking and a garage in a very very nice part of a nice town (ok you obviously have to want to live here to rent it!). We are about two minutes walk from one of the best primary schools in town. The one sticking point is that we are having to rent it fully-furnished but I would have thought by now we would have had more interest (it's been on the market for about 8 weeks and we have had two viewings - it will be available in July).

Does anyone have any idea about the lettings market? I really would have thought it would be very bouyant at the moment....

have just put mine on to let today so i hope not!!
the fully furnished thing may be the problem we are going to be moving into a rented place and i would not even look at a house if it was furnished.
Where are you location wise?

In the south-west. cheltenham. Unfortunately we have no choice about the furniture. Have just come off the phone from the agency - they are going to drop the price slightly but I don't think there's too many people out there wanting a house like ours at the moment.

It's a real stress.

From what I have seen and I have just spent the last 4 days looking at rental property the market is fairly good, all the property we wanted to see had already gone after arranging viewings on Monday!!

Everyone is looking at unfurnished 3 bedroom houses.

I think the key may be to advertise is in both the furnished and unfurnished sections as this gives you more of a chance to get someone interested.

Can you not store your furniture?

It's really really expensive to store furniture unfortunately. Would rather sell it and start again when we come back to the UK.

Oh I hate dealing with property issues - it's ALWAYS stressful!!!

It is meant to be booming atm according to our estate agents.

We have just let a house with no probs. Mind is is a 3 bed unfurnished..........

I am having a nightmare trying to find a large 4 bed to rent. The cost of rent is double our current mortgage payment even though the rental properties are a fair bit smaller.

I wouldn't even consider a furnished house though. We'll have a house full of furniture of our own. Suspect most people are in the same situation.

Can you put your stuff in the garage? Mind you I would also reject a house with no garage because again, I need the space for our things.

Maybe I'm being too fussy!!

We are about to let as we want things to settle before buying and we would probably rent something like your house.

However we have all our own furniture and would want to take it with us, I think it may be the furniture that is the problem.

From what i have seen the rental market is doing well as we are hvaing trouble finding somewhere due to the competition and lack of quality properties in good areas.

We rent and I agree with others who say fully furnished is an issue.

I think students and possibly young people who have newly left home are the only types who want a furnished house.

If your market is families then they will have all their own stuff.

We are really looking for expat families like us (we're being posted overseas for 2-4 years), there are a few big companies plus GCHQ around here so there are families (eg Americans) looking for furnished properties. The agency said it was harder to let furnished but should not be too much of a problem.

We have too much furniture to store in the garage, it's a big old house! But we're going in a few weeks time so too late to sell everything. Perhaps it's time to look into the cost of storage!

Could you use both your garage and a friend's/relative's

Isn't it in your contract for overseas posting for the company to store your furniture? Or have you tried one of those self storage places? We were going to do s/s and it was not that expensive. In the end our company has moved stuff for us and stored the rest. I'd take a look at your conditions.

Mummyjaguar, we have a 4 bed in north-east that we are trying to rent out (well i think it's still available, having not heard that it's rented yet) (longshot).

How much are you asking, if you don't mind my asking? We're looking for a house to rent in the Shropshire/Somerset area. We'd be put off by the furnished bit though as we have our own. I'd sell most of the big pieces and advertise it as part furnished - that is with white goods, carpets, rugs, curtains etc.

I sympathise, organising all of this from another country must be a nightmare!

From what I know, houses are being let fairly quickly. Everytime I enquire I'm told that I'm too late and they are being snapped up from the minute they come onto the letting market.

We just let our three bed end of terrace in London.

We were told the lettings market was booming because nobody wanted to buy houses at the moment. Then we were told that a lot of the people who had their houses on the market for some time gave up and approached the rental market instead.

We let ours semi furnished. We sold some furniture, and took some with us. People who rent 3/4 bed houses normally have furniture of their own, and dont want to store it somewhere.

We used two agencies, the first month there was one or two viewings per week. Because the house wuold be available for 1st April, they did not really start marketing it until 1st March as most people have one month notice, and are not looking for something that becomes available far in the future. In the end both agencies had 5-6 viewings per week. The price was dropped twice. And it was not actually let until a month after we had gone.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone, this has been really useful. Unfortunately my dh works for the civil service and they don't pay to store furniture. However I am going to look into the cost of self storage as I think semi/unfurnished might be the way to go. We can store the stuff like sofas that I wouldn't want to get rid of and smaller items could be sold/given away/lent out. We only bought IKEA stuff for a lot of our furniture knowing it was a real possibility it would be damaged with two small children! So buying it again wouldn't be the end of the world.

Rhubarb - it's on the market at £1,400 a month but I think they might drop it to £1,300 a month to drum up more interest. I can send you a link to the advert if you are interested? It's three bedroom but with a huge playroom (well that's what we use it for - could be used as a spare room etc) downstairs.

Have you had a look on rightmove at comparable rental properties in your area?

I agree I think unfurnished would be let a lot quicker.

Get an independent letting agent round to give you a second opinion on valuation. With regard to the pricing, if you want the best chance of long-term tenants and minimal voids, price it under the going rate and keep it under, your tenants would then think twice about moving (I know we have!).

I would not let it furnished. It sounds from what others have said as though unfurnished properties are more desirable..I expect this is because a lot of people are wanting to rent either while they do up houses or in the hope that the property market will fall. In either case people would have their furniture with them. I suppose there will be those from overseas needing a house in the UK but then often their furniture will be shipped anyway.

The other thing is that if you want to use your furniture again it might not be in a very good state after you have rented your house out. I am thinking of items such as sofas that might get damaged through wear and tear or some one smoking in the house.

In your position, I would maybe store a few items of furniture that I was very attached to (ideally in relatives houses to save storage cost) and sell the rest..things such as children's furniture, and Ikea stuff would probably sell well on Ebay.

I agree with the post about asking for a rent that is not quite the highest. We rented our flat out for 5 years - we never put up the rent and had the same tenant throughout which saved a lot of hassle.

Ah Clara, we're quite poor and can only go up to £600pcm. It does sound a tad pricey however, especially if it's furnished. You could get a 5 bed detached up here for that. Sorry!

Oh sorry Rhubarb! It is pricey but it's the going rate - Cheltenham is pretty dear, especially round these parts! Not quite London prices but not too far off. It's a funny, divided town and if you live in the catchment areas for the "good" schools, the prices go up hugely...

...anyway we are definitely looking into furniture storage so think we'll advertise it either furnished or not. But now pee'd off to see yet another house within our little "estate" is up for let - that's 4 now all within sight of this one, including our neighbours!