#3: Guide to selecting good letting agents

In Good Landlording Episode #3, Richard and Suzanne broach the big subject of letting agents by giving an overview of what landlords need to know about agents to help them make the right choice, in the first of a series of three episodes on agents. For many landlords, agents are a vital part of letting and managing their properties, while for other landlords, they prefer to manage every aspect of the properties themselves. As experienced landlords themselves, Suzanne and Richard discuss the pros and cons of using letting agents, and share some little-known tips on how to select good agents, based on their own experiences and Suzanne's legal insights. This is an introductory episode on letting agents. Richard and Suzanne cover practical tips for signing up with letting agents in Episode #4. Here are the detailed show notes for Episode #3. What we cover in Episode #3 on letting agents1. How many landlords use letting agents?2. Why it's important to choose the right letting agent3. Why landlords should have copies of all documentation4. What does the law say about letting agents?5. Basic due diligence to avoid rogue or bad agents6. How can landlords find a good letting agent?Golden nuggetCredits >> Submit a question: Click here for question form 1. How many landlords use letting agents? It's difficult to know definitively how many of the 2.5 million or so landlords use letting agents as even the official statistics are estimates based on small samples. However, here are two surveys which both estimate that the overwhelming majority of landlords (over 80%) do not use them for property management. The 2021 English Private Landlord Survey (EPLS) estimated that almost half (49%) of the landlords surveyed said they didn't use a letting agent. 46% used an agent for letting services and less than one in five (18%) used one for property and tenant management services. Looking at it the other way, over four-fifths (82%) of the landlords surveyed self-managed their properties. However, this was not only a small sample size of 9,300 landlords, the sample was not representative of landlords as a whole and  landlords who registered deposits themselves- figures for landlords whose agents registered deposits are not included in this analysis. In the Property Redress Scheme's 2023 Annual Sentiment Survey of 2,700 landlords and agents, 65% of landlords self-managed their own properties, with about a fifth (19%) relying on a hybrid of self and agent management. According to this PRS survey, only 14% of private rented properties are managed by letting agents. This number is less than estimated in the EPLS. In the "old days", before the internet, there were few letting agents and landlords would find tenants by advertising in the classifieds of newspapers. Suzanne remembers finding her first bed-sit in Clapham in the early 1990s in the classifieds of the Evening Standard. Technology has been slowly making it easier for landlords to self-manage their properties, with the advent of OpenRent (affiliate link) and now the new self-service letting platform launched by Hello Neighbour in April 2024. (Hello Neighbour sponsor Good Landlording and offer listeners a £10 discount by using this Good Landlording link). These online platforms facilitate the process of finding tenants themselves, advertising on the property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla, and "onboarding" them. 2. Why it's important to choose the right letting agent Letting agents can make or break the success of a tenancy.