Investing in your Education
How to find good Letting Agents.
Finding a good letting agent is very important whilst you are building your property portfolio. You need to feel comfortable that they are going to look after you as the landlord as well as looking after your tenants. Allowing you to continue with you income-generating activities.
If your strategy is to have Local Housing Association (LHA) tenants its worth speaking to the hosing officer at your local council, (you can find details on their website). They may have a list of letting agents they recommend, as you want to make sure they are familiar with dealing with LHA tenants.
It will help you if the letting agent sees you are serious. Here are my top tips for giving the right impression.
-
Always make an appointment to go in and meet the letting agent as having a face to face meeting will start the relationship building much faster and they will appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to see them.
-
The telephone call is only for you to introduce yourself take not more than 5 minutes to explain you are looking to invest in some buy to let properties and you would like to come in and discuss your options. That’s it, book the appointment and don’t be late.
-
First impressions do count unfortunately, and my experience tells me that turning up smart casual is better than Jeans and T-shirt. Its your decision and you have to feel comfortable, but this will give you a head start.
-
Don’t try and out do them, always let them think they are the experts and that way they will be more than happy to answer any questions and go out of there way to help you.
-
You want to set up meetings with at least 10 lettings agents as it’s a numbers game the more you meet the more likely you are to find the right agents. Make sure you are efficient with your time and set your appointments accordingly.
So you have your appointments in the diary and you are ready to go. I don’t know about you but I was quite nervous about my first meeting with the letting agents, so I decided to put a list of questions together. This made it easier for me and was a good starting point. After you have asked the same questions to a few agents you will soon see who are the experts and know their stuff.
Here are my questions and I hope you find them useful
- As I am planning to invest in more than one property I want to understand the demand so what type of property are you looking for? What do you have most demand for?
- Are there areas within areas that are more popular than others?
- Are there any areas I should avoid?
- What’s the average rental for those properties?
- How many properties do you currently have let?
- Do you work with LHA tenants? If yes then ask
- What percentage of your tenants are LHA? If more than 50%
- I see a good market for LHA tenants, what procedures do you have in place to safeguard the rent as the council now pays the tenant directly?
- I will be looking for a fully managed service what are your fees?
- Are there any additional charges e.g. TDC deposit, EPC certificate, Inventory, admin fee etc etc.
I found it easier to write the answers down as the letting agent gave them to me. If you prefer you can do it when you have left them but don’t forget anything as this is important information that will help you decide who you want to work with.
