Landlord Products / Services
There’s going to come a time when every landlord [that uses a letting agent] asks the question: do I actually need to be paying through the nose for my letting agent’s service? Can’t I just do this myself?
The short answer: probably, yes.
Table of contents
- What do letting agents actually do?
- How to start finding tenants without a letting agent!
- Why ALL landlords should consider going it alone
- Agents can get it wrong, and they often do!
- Tenancy Agreements and Landlord legal responsibilities
- What if I can’t conduct the viewings and routine inspections?
- Hold on though, letting agents may be perfect for you!
What do letting agents actually do?
First, let’s take a look at what letting agents actually do for us landlords. Broadly speaking, you can expect your local agent to provide the following services:
- Market property to find tenants
- Conduct viewings
- Conduct credit checks and prospective applicants
- Arrange tenancy agreement
- Rent collection
- Conduct routine inspections
Certainly there’s value provided, but there’s nothing there that you can’t do yourself or even outsource to service providers for a fraction of the cost compared to a management contract. Easily.
How to start finding tenants without a letting agent!
I think this might be the best place to get you on your way, to provide a brief explanation on how landlords can get started on their solo careers, without the aid a traditional high-street letting agent. This is the first step to ditching letting agents – first and foremost, we need to know how to find tenants without their help.
Over the previous few years I’ve written an obscene amount of blog posts about how landlords, even the most novice and foolish, can successfully find tenants without using letting agents and consequently save £1000’s on fees.
- Start here: A Guide to finding tenants – it covers the A-Z of finding good quality tenants quickly and cheaply, including how to Market your rental on Rightmove via an Online Letting Agent (which is by far the best way to find tenants, in my opinion). In fact, if you’re simply here to find out how to effectively find tenants without an agent, go over to the online letting agent guide – but here’s a quick overview first…
An example of an Online Letting Agent is OpenRent – they’re the most popular by a country mile – they make it possible for landlords to advertise their rentals properties on Rightmove & Zoopla to generate enquiries from prospective tenants for as little as £29. The vast majority of high-street agents source their enquires from exactly the same portals, so you’re accessing the same pool, so to speak.
Here are the two packages they offer:
| Letting Agent | Rating | Term | Includes / Notes | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
OpenRent | RatingGoogle Reviews | Duration 5 days / 3 months* | Includes / NotesUltimate Advertising package
*5 days free, and then the option of continuing service for 3 months for £39 for new customers and £49 for returning customers! | PriceFree Trial*FREENo hidden fees, no credit card details required! | Visit Website |
| OpenRent Top Pick | RatingGoogle Reviews | Duration 3 months | Includes / NotesAdvertising + Rent Now package
| Price£69 Inc VAT | Visit Website |
Whilst OpenRent are the most popular, they are still only one out of a dozen reputable online letting agents available to choose from, all varying in the range of services they offer landlords. OpenRent is great for basic tenant-find services, but there are other online agents, just like LettingAProperty.com, that offer incredibly feature rich packages that are great for landlords after more ongoing support throughout the tenancy.
Simply, online letting agents have made it easy and possible for all types of landlords to become self-efficient (and save a boatload in the process). It’s a beautiful thing.
Why ALL landlords should consider going it alone (without a local high-street agent)!
- It’s significantly cheaper – literally save thousands on agency fees
- It’s relatively easy to find tenants without using a letting agent
- All the tools and resources you need are easily available
- Thousands of landlords self-manage their rental properties successfully
A common misconception is that letting agents provide us with a skill set which can’t quickly and easily be duplicated by the average person/landlord. We assume that they have an advantage over us by having all the trade tools and resources. In reality, that’s just a smokescreen perception. All agents provide us with is a service which we don’t know enough about to confidently duplicate. But when you break it down, it’s not really that difficult or time-consuming to learn the essentials, which will enable us to find and manage tenants for ourselves.
As long as you stuck to the golden rules of buying a BTL, which simply consists of buying a suitable property in a suitable area, there is no reason why a letting agent should be vital in your Landlording crusade.
I think the main edge agents have over regular folks is “local knowledge”, but I genuinely believe that’s not as powerful or useful as once before, especially in the modern world, where the Internet has become such a dominant provider in daily life. Most agents rely on widely available internet services to find tenants. They use tools we can all tap into; we just need to be shown where and how. Consequently, “local knowledge” has become redundant in a sense, especially when the enquiries are flooding in via the means of online marketing.
I’ve seen high-street agents charge between 8%-15% of the rental return for their services, depending on the type of service. The most basic service agents’ offer is typically a “tenant-only” service, which is where an agent will find a tenant and leave the management role up to the landlord. On top of that, most “novice” landlords will buy the legally required extras from the agent (e.g. Energy Performance Certificates (EPC’s) and Gas Safety Certificates) simply due to ease and ignorance. Using letting agents for those extra services is not the cheapest option because they subcontract other companies to provide them, and most agents add their own premium to make money from the referrals. So it’s easy to see how and where the costs add up.
How much money landlords can save without using local letting agents…
After looking at OpenRent’s £29 tenant-find package I don’t think there’s any mystery here. However, I do want to walk through a real and practical example.
Let’s assume an agent has found me a tenant willing to sign a 12 month agreement. The rent is £1000 per month. Based on the lower end 8% fee, an agent would charge £960 as a fixed annual fee for their service. On top of the regular service charge, most agents charge a renewal fee, which means I would need to pay an additional annual fee if I wish to keep the same tenant after the 12 months expires.
Over the past 3 years I’ve not used an agent once, and my cost for finding tenants has been £0 – £100.
It’s your call, you can either spend £1000 on an agent, or learn how to do it yourself and spend £0 – £100. it’s a no-brainer for me. Remember, a buy-to-let investment is a business, so it’s about keeping costs down.
Of course, my example only took into consideration the “tenant finding” aspect. There’s more money to be saved when independently looking for companies to provide you with an EPC and Gas Safety Certificate, as opposed to going through an agent to acquire those legal documents.
Agents can get it wrong, and they often do!
One very important point to remember is that just because agents charge a fee to find tenants, it doesn’t mean the prospective they find will be any better than then one you can find yourself. I’ve had an agent charge me £750 only to find me a tenant that fell into 2 months worth of arrears almost immediately. I eventually had to evict her, which was an added cost.
If you think you’ll always get a better quality of tenant from an agent, you’ve been grossly misled. Most agents do standard reference checking on their applications. Clearly, the referencing isn’t bullet-proof, regardless of how it’s done.
My point is, going It alone can be just as risky as using a letting agent in respect of the return in tenant quality.
Tenancy Agreements and Landlord legal responsibilities
Many landlords get scared away of going it alone because of the complications behind Tenancy Agreements and other landlord legal obligations. Again, this is a common misconception, because it really isn’t that complicated.
You don’t need a specialist solicitor/lawyer to draw up any contracts. There are hundreds of reputable Tenancy Agreement vendors online. All you need to do is download one and fill in the missing spaces. Most of it is self-explanatory. Same applies with Tenant Guarantor Forms.
I do stress though, it’s important you get the correct documents from reputable sources.
Regarding the other legalities, here’s a list of Landlord Obligations / Regulations.
What if I can’t conduct the viewings and routine inspections?
While I generally always encourage landlords to conduct their own viewings and inspections, because the reality is, no one else is going to care about your property and your investment as much you will, so self-managed inspections are likely to be more productive, I do also completely appreciate it’s not always possible, especially for long-distant landlords.
For that reason, many landlords presume that they have no choice but to stump up the cash for a fully managed letting service, which includes a tenant-find service, because it’s the only practical solution.
At one point in time I would have agreed. But not anymore.
So if your only reason for using a letting agent to find tenants is to benefit from viewings and/or routine inspections, I do want open up your options by introducing my affiliate partner Viewber.
Viewber provide a popular ad hoc hosted viewings and inspection services for landlords. No contracts or tie ins, just use and abuse when required.
In my opinion, an on-demand hosted viewing and inspections service provided by Viewber used to be the missing bridge to enable more landlords to self-manage.
I’ve already written a detailed overview of Viewber’s services, but here’s a quick summary of their services:
| Supplier | Rating | Notes / Includes | Price from | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Landlord Legal Service | Rating Google Reviews | Service detailsHosted Viewings on your behalf
How Viewber Works
*Viewing appointment price list
*Open House appointment price list
| Price From *£36+ VAT | More Info |
| Supplier | Rating | Notes / Includes | Price from | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landlord Legal Service | Rating Google Reviews | Service detailsRoutine or one-off property condition check service.
How Viewber Works
| Price From £44.5+ VAT | More Info |
Please note, I try my best to keep the information of each service up-to-date, but you should read the T&C's from their website for the most up-to-date and accurate information.
Using ad hoc services like Viewber are much cheaper than getting tied into management contracts. That’s the thing that many landlords don’t realise, property management services aren’t as crucial as they once were, because there are so many on-demand individual solutions available these days, covering every aspect of lettings.
Hold on though, letting agents may be perfect for you!
I’d just like to clarify that letting agents aren’t perfect for everyone, but at the same time, they might just be perfect for someone.
Letting agents have their uses, which I won’t and can’t deny. For example, if you’re the type of landlord that doesn’t want to deal with the chore of finding or managing your own property, then letting agents are perfect (if you don’t mind paying the premium).
But I warn you, while you may feel like you’re taking a back seat position when employing the services of a letting agent; reality can often have an entirely different agenda for you.
Letting agents will take care of the day-to-day management, but remember, if your tenant turns rogue and defaults on rent, the responsibility and stress will always fall back onto the landlord’s lap. That is unavoidable.
I’m not trying to take anything away from letting agents here. They know their industry and they know how to find tenants. They’re trained at their jobs and know the shortcuts. However, I just want to make it clear that there are other options.
If you’re interested in learning more on how to self-managing your rental property, then once again, I implore you to shuffle through my Guide to finding tenants, where I go into much more detail, including more tips and tricks, compliance, and problem solving.
Landlord out xo
Disclaimer: I'm just a landlord blogger; I'm 100% not qualified to give legal or financial advice. I'm a doofus. Any information I share is my unqualified opinion, and should never be construed as professional legal or financial advice. You should definitely get advice from a qualified professional for any legal or financial matters. For more information, please read my full disclaimer.
I shouldn't really be agreeing with you being a lettings agent but yes landlords can go it alone. In fact it would be just as simple for them if they only had one or two properties.
The advantage with us is when you have a few properties we can keep an eye on gas safety's etc, making sure rents are on time and making sure work is carried out on properties. As well as this there's the amount of websites we post across for letting a property and the credit checks we can perform for quite a minimal amount.
As for rates, our unique selling point (and something I feel keeps us alive) is the fact that we are just 7% which you would be hard pushed to find anywhere.
As always though another great article from The Landlord (I mean that sincerly)