CasualLandLord
15-03-2010, 15:11 PM
Hi. I recently bought a property and having refurbished it throughout - used one letting agent to market it for several weeks with no real success. I've now got it marketed with a few more agents for the maximum coverage. I've used one agent in each town (totalling 4) but I'm not sure if that's a good thing, because of its visibility on rightmove with different agents. As well as bigger exposure and getting competative rates - it also gives customers a choice of agents to use. However, does it also look desperate by doing this? The disadvantage is that I'm getting conflicting information from these agents.
For e.g. I recently had a scenario where one agent told me that they have the 'ideal tenant' who was willing to move in a few weeks away - which was at a time when I also had other interested parties through other agents. This agent told me that by taking fees from this family, they would be committed in moving in and that if they defaulted in any way, that fee would be payable to me. This fee was said to be a holding deposit which is £250 (as the family was moving in a couple of weeks away) and the agent claims that they cannot take the 6 weeks deposit or get them to sign the tenancy agreement until the day they move in. They assured that nothing will go wrong so I told the other agents that the property had been let. A week later, they told me that these tenants failed their credit referencing (bad debts, CCJ ) so that was it! They can't move in. The holding deposit turned out to be their admin. costs afterall, as the tenant didn't change their mind but simply failed their checks! The other tenants from other agents had found somewhere else by then. So, I'm left with no tenants, no money! The agents are £250 better off!!
Another agent said that not everyone with bad credit history gets turned down by letting agents so that agent could have asked for guarantors, 6 months deposit etc. to get round this problem. Is this true? What could I have done differently to aviod losing tenants from the other agents at the time? Should I have got them all checked out first - even if it means they could be out of pocket?
For e.g. I recently had a scenario where one agent told me that they have the 'ideal tenant' who was willing to move in a few weeks away - which was at a time when I also had other interested parties through other agents. This agent told me that by taking fees from this family, they would be committed in moving in and that if they defaulted in any way, that fee would be payable to me. This fee was said to be a holding deposit which is £250 (as the family was moving in a couple of weeks away) and the agent claims that they cannot take the 6 weeks deposit or get them to sign the tenancy agreement until the day they move in. They assured that nothing will go wrong so I told the other agents that the property had been let. A week later, they told me that these tenants failed their credit referencing (bad debts, CCJ ) so that was it! They can't move in. The holding deposit turned out to be their admin. costs afterall, as the tenant didn't change their mind but simply failed their checks! The other tenants from other agents had found somewhere else by then. So, I'm left with no tenants, no money! The agents are £250 better off!!
Another agent said that not everyone with bad credit history gets turned down by letting agents so that agent could have asked for guarantors, 6 months deposit etc. to get round this problem. Is this true? What could I have done differently to aviod losing tenants from the other agents at the time? Should I have got them all checked out first - even if it means they could be out of pocket?