Managing a rental yourself?

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

Soldato
Joined
16 Nov 2002
Posts
11,290
Location
The Moon
Hi all, i have a property which I let out and has been for about 4 years now. I have always had a letting agent manage the property for me as I was out of the country and it was just easier, however, I am moving back to the UK and trying to ascertain the value in having an agent on board as i'm not sure they actually do much aside from take the rental payment, do yearly gas checks, and references for any new tenants. I've been lucky and only had 2 tenants in that time.

I'm wondering if I should just save myself the 10% fee they charge and just manage the letting myself.

I have landlords insurance already, the only thing I can think of that I will need to sort out is taking the rental payment from the tenant, potentially do something to transfer the bond, or who has ownership fo the bond, and then have some draft contracts drawn up.

I'm aware that come the time the tenant wants to move out i'll need to find new tenants and do checks etc however my sister used to let her house and said it was super easy finding your own tenants.

I also want to maintain a good relationship with the tenant now and potentially do some upgrade works to the house so they stay for longer.

Is there anything else i need to be aware of when doing the management myself?
 
My wife and I both manage our buy to lets ourselves, my experiences with agencies have been poor to dire, their idea of vetting is not like our own. I had one agency bint who let the rent slide and inspections were falsified, and on doing my own investigations found she was having an affair with the tenant and actually living there with him part time...

Agencies often have a very Cavalier approach to your property and kid gloves are used with recalcitrant tenants for too long, if you are able to find the time and have the nous to deal with some unsavoury characters from time to time when vetting, or inspecting, save the 10% and handle things yourself. If you shy away from the odd confrontation, and don't like to assert yourself, then a decent agency, if you can find one, might be better for you. Handling good tenants is a pleasure and easy, it's when someone has miscalculated and you find you have a bad one the trouble starts.
 
Last edited:
If you look at the bill the agent gives you every month and then add in the cost of a new tenant (plan for once a year maybe?) which is roughly £250 - you've got the cost of using a letting agent annually. Then decide if the hassle is worth taking on yourself as this is different for each person :)

I think if you've got a full time job they are good value however I'm planning on getting rid in the future and doing everything myself in-between rounds of golf
 
My wife looks after her rental herself. It might just be we have good tenants and we live close by, but it seems easy enough.
 
Wholly dependent on your tenants and your ability to issue the correct notices when required and keep up with all the statutory requirements.
 
They both have their pros and cons.. as others have mentioned the main one which put me off from managing my own property was the 'what if' you have a bad tenant and they don't pay up on time etc. I'm the type who doesn't like frontal conflicts so i let the agency deal with it and cough up the management fee.. though prior to any signing with an agent to haggle as much as possible and not take their default value.
 
Well I reached out to my current tenants as I wanted to find out how they were finding the property, how they had found the agent, if there was anything that needed urgently doing at the house and also to find out what their long term plans were as the current letting agreement was due to expire in 1 month. They seem like a lovely couple with 2 young kids who have been in there for over 2 years now and seem like they want to stay. Ive never really had any condition report updates from the letting agent, which leads me to believe they aren't really doing them or havent done that many and outside of holding a deposit in a scheme and vetting the occasional tenants i'm not sure what value I get from them. When I was living abroad it made sense, but with me being back in the country and more at-hand to deal with things it doesn't make as much sense.

They agents also put me in a predicament with my neighbour who asked if I would go halves on some fencing and said yes if they can confirm things with a quote first so I could assess whether I think it was a fair quote, which the letting agent never passed on and subsequently resulted in my neighbour sending me a quote 50% more than the original figures they spoke about.

Im also aware the house hasn't really been decorated in over 5 years so could well do with a few touch ups here and there so would rather try and let the tenants know I want to make it a more pleasant place to live and am not just a rogue landlord.
 
As someone who has been renting for 16 years, there is no way in hell I would manage a property myself.

I would gladly give 10% to an agent to do it if I were a landlord. Managing a property is a lot of time, stress and money and well worth the 10%.

There can be long periods where nothing happens, but when it does, it hits and it hits hard.
 
Got lucky with ours really as it's near my dad who manages it, however we have had same tenants for 3 years and they are really nice, also it hasn't needed much doing other than the work we carried out when we bought it.
 
R.O.S.S.I said:
Well I reached out to my current tenants as I wanted to find out how they were finding the property, how they had found the agent, if there was anything that needed urgently doing at the house and also to find out what their long term plans were as the current letting agreement was due to expire in 1 month. They seem like a lovely couple with 2 young kids who have been in there for over 2 years now and seem like they want to stay. Ive never really had any condition report updates from the letting agent, which leads me to believe they aren't really doing them or havent done that many and outside of holding a deposit in a scheme and vetting the occasional tenants i'm not sure what value I get from them. When I was living abroad it made sense, but with me being back in the country and more at-hand to deal with things it doesn't make as much sense.

They agents also put me in a predicament with my neighbour who asked if I would go halves on some fencing and said yes if they can confirm things with a quote first so I could assess whether I think it was a fair quote, which the letting agent never passed on and subsequently resulted in my neighbour sending me a quote 50% more than the original figures they spoke about.

Im also aware the house hasn't really been decorated in over 5 years so could well do with a few touch ups here and there so would rather try and let the tenants know I want to make it a more pleasant place to live and am not just a rogue landlord.
Click to expand...

I feel for you on this one.. and i don't live in a different country. Some maintenance so to speak has happened without my consent.. though luckily no serious works costing in the thousands, but again put in writing to not go ahead with works regardless of cost without written approval by myself either through post or email.

I've been told by fellow agents of the agency i have my contract with that i'm more 'hands on' than they expected as i prefer to close out any issues as soon as they arise. Again i prefer not to have any conflicts and so try to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, but it is also to make the tenants feel they have trust in their landlord (me) to show they are in good hands and hopefully extend their contract longer than what has been set in stone.

Everyone is difrferent but with me, unless i have full trust in a tenant (if they have been a tenant for more than 3 tears for example), i won't go at it alone on the basis something might happen if i didn't have the agents backing
 
Chris Wilson said:
My wife and I both manage our buy to lets ourselves, my experiences with agencies have been poor to dire, their idea of vetting is not like our own. I had one agency bint who let the rent slide and inspections were falsified, and on doing my own investigations found she was having an affair with the tenant and actually living there with him part time...
Click to expand...

Wow , that escalated quickly.

PAz said:
Have a read of https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=207&t=1909981&i=0 and decide
Click to expand...

OMG! That sounds like a total nightmare.
 
Yeh pretty long thread in that link, any TL;DR? :cry:

There's always a risk of dodgy tenants, touch wood i've been lucky so far. I'm going to find out if this family intend on staying in the house for another 12 months at least as I see no reason to utilise them with the same tenants. If and when the current ones decide to leave then I can think about using a new agent to find new tenants potentially - or give it a go myself.
 
Lysander said:
I don't want to read a 59 page thread. What's the upshot?
Click to expand...

Looks like after reading the first post came to this:

I must say however, that our experience with Universal Credit has been absolutely shocking. To save people reading through the whole thread, here's a bit of background.

When the tenant moved in, rent was paid by UC directly to us. After a few month the tenant changed it so that they would receive the rent. Back in January we submitted a UC47 and received confirmation that it had been setup. After a couple of months of no payments from UC I chased it up, only to be told by UC that the tenants circumstances had changed and the direct payment/managed payment had been stopped. Nobody had told me about it. In April I submitted another UC47, but based on previous experience I rang UC almost weekly to chase things up. Each time I rang I was told that it was with another department and someone would call me back, no-one ever called me back. Then one day, out of the blue, a lady from UC rang me to try and help, she said they didn't receive the UC47 but not to worry as she's put the details in based on an old UC47 but with updated information (outstanding rent etc). It looks like either she messed that up, or the tenant has had this payment arrangement cancelled as well.

So essentially there's a number of ****-ups. The first, UC (in my opinion) shouldn't allow tenants to change the rent to be paid to them. The second problem was that my request for direct payment was successfully setup but then cancelled without telling me. The third problems was that not a single person I spoke to at UC told me that there was no UC47 on the system when I kept ringing for progress, so we went on for a couple of month when all I had to do was submit another form. Finally, I have no idea whether the person who setup the last management payment over the phone messed up, or if somehow the tenant knows a workaround which forced their circumstances to change and managed payments to be cancelled. The whole experience with UC has been a complete shambles.

I'm praying that the tenant digs their heels in and stays in the property until the bailiffs turn up to turf them out, because I'll be there, taking in the pleasure of seeing them being turfed out onto the street like the rubbish that they are.
Click to expand...
 
I used to manage my rentals myself, but switched over to having them managed them a few years back. There isn't a chance in hell I'd switch back to self managed. I've got an agent I trust and it's not in his interest to let to idiots as he'd only be dealing with the flack himself.

I work full time and managing properties was a pain to fit around that so I'm more than willing to pay 10% for my agent to act as a buffer. It's pretty much seamless from my end, all I have to do is give the nod if any work needs doing and the agent gets one of his contractors on the case and I'm not having to get people in and chase them. If it means I no longer get phone calls at 10pm on a Sunday night, it's worth it in my book.
 
Street said:
the agent gets one of his contractors on the case
Click to expand...

At the moment that's got to be a massive positive, try finding a plumber on short notice whilst a tenant is screaming their hot water stopped working 20 minutes ago and someone should be on call 24/7 just for them
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom