Gumtree charging! Any ideas for a replacement portal

[kmmr]

Hi,

I am a very regular reader, but rare poster, but hopefully you can help me.

I have a little flat in London that I have advertised happily on Gumtree for years. Always got good tenants, did my own referencing, and used my own tenancy agreement. I dealt with emails and calls personally without involving an agent.

However, they are now charging for the ad, as well as a £7.99 'bump' fee, which puts you ad back to the top of the listing. Now this used to be critical in gumtree as the ad falls down the ranking very quickly. I suspect the list will move slower now, but I will still need to do it at least daily.

So, since it now costs best part of £50 a week to list on gumtree, I was wondering if there was a better option out there. Ideally one that puts the listing on the main portals (rightmove etc) and allows people to see that it is a private landlord. I'd like one that allows me to have first and direct contact with tenants, and to manage the process myself. I don't like the idea of an agency getting involved and more often than not causing more trouble than they solve!

I have a link for UPad, which look fine, but I really just rather pay £x for the ad, and I will manage everything else.

Thanks in advance!

[Snorkerz]

Well anything that appears on Rightmove isn't going to "allows people to see that it is a private landlord" as RMs policy is to only advertise 'agency' properties. Yes, there are agents that will put your stuff on there, but they have to operate under the radar. There are one or two here: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22adertise+on+rightmove%22&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADFA_enGB457&redir_esc=&ei=Ny3dTo-lD4emhAf78vXjDg#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb%3AIE-Address&rlz=1I7ADFA_enGB457&source=hp&q=advertise+on+rightmove&pbx=1&oq=advertise+on+rightmove&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=7l7l3l910l1l1l0l0l0l0l140l140l0.1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=b1ea29715d67005c&biw=1280&bih=642

You may want to try Vivastreet and Houseladder - neither famous for 'good tenants' but neither is Gumtree and you seem to have been lucky so far.

Tepilo is a quite smart site, and free, but I'm not sure of their hits yet.

[kmmr]

I have had a look at UPad, and it seems ok. I only dislike that they do the credit checking, I quite like doing that myself so I can ask a lot of questions. Maybe I have been lucky, but it does seem to have worked for the last few years.

I suppose it could never last free, especially with all the scams, but a little disappointing.

Also some people do seem to like dealing with private landlords, but I suppose many will also be interested only because they think they can get things past them.

I'll have a look at Tepilo too. Thanks