How to Get a Good Letting Agency

 

It is good to highlight that he market for renting out residential property has expanded over the last couple of years due to the growth of buy-to-let options and the increasing popularity of rental property as a long-term investment option and according to the latest statistics close to two-fifths of households in England were rented. A high number of landlords appoint an agent to handle the rental and there are many rental agents and most of the estate agencies operate letting departments and because the agent will be responsible for the long-term financial and legal matters it is pertinent that they opt for the right agent because letting agents are not regulated and there is no statutory standard for fees or service.

 

The location of the property rental agency is vital because it makes sense to use a letting agency that is located in the same area as the rental property and most towns have a high number of firms that are letting experts and most estate agencies have letting departments. There are some landlords opt to use agents that are members of trade or professional bodies because such organizations have codes of conduct that the members must abide by them and they also require that the agents have guarantees in place to protect both the tenant and landlord monies.

 

Many property letting agents have three tiers of service that include: tenant-find, tenant find + rent collection and full management. It is good to state that tenant-find means that the landlord will be in charge of the day-to-day administration of the letting, tenant-find + rent means that the agent takes over the duty of finding the tenant and collecting rent but all other matters are dealt with by the landlord whereas full management means that the agent will handle everything from the start to the finish and the owner only has to get involved if something out of the ordinary needs their involvement.

 

A qualified letting agent will handle all the paperwork involved in a renting and they will take up references on a new tenant, confirm the employment details of the tenant, conduct credit checks and make sure the tenant has the right citizen status. It is vital to state that the rental agent draws up the tenancy agreement and collates the needed gas and electrical safety certificates and they obtain an energy performance certificate for the property that is given to the potential tenant. It is a known fact that a property with no tenant costs the landlord money so they need to make sure that the letting agent will be proactive in finding a good tenant as soon as they are instructed by the landlord and the landlord needs to ask the agent which local daily they advertise on and whether they list property on listing websites. To learn more about real estate, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_property.