Cut out the middle man: landlords, don't rent with a letting agent; DIY to save time and money

The accidental landlord finds it cheaper and easier to let her properties herself.
£320 per week: this one-bedroom furnished apartment in a handsome period property in Brixton Road at the Oval in SW9 is available to rent through Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward in Kennington (020 8012 2722)
Victoria Whitlock23 September 2017

Really, I can't understand why more landlords don't let their properties themselves when it's so easy and you can save hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds in agency fees.

I realise that some landlords can't be bothered organising viewings, and that's fair enough, but if you live close enough to your property and can spare a few hours to show people around, it's a no-brainer.

You only have to snap a few photos, load them on to a cheap online letting agency's website, write a bit of blurb about your property and wait for the phone to ring.

When the viewing requests start to roll in, if you're clever you can bunch them together into one or two sessions to save yourself some time.

Granted, when the market is sluggish, as it is at the moment, you might need to do more viewings to find the right tenant, but it's definitely, definitely do-able. Not only will you save yourself a lot of money, you'll also get to pick your tenants, weed out the ones you don't want and be nice to the ones you like.

I think many landlords think letting agents achieve more rent than they would get themselves, but I have proof that this isn't necessarily the case. I recently had to re-let two properties at the same time and so I advertised them privately. But because I was going on holiday and short of time, I thought I'd line up a letting agent to take over if I didn't manage to find tenants before I went away.

I invited a well-known letting agency round for a valuation, and the result was quite revealing. The agent actually took a step back when I told him how much the outgoing tenants on both properties were paying in rent. He said his agency had never achieved so much, not even on top-spec properties — and mine definitely didn't fall into that category. He said he would have estimated the rent at £50 less on one and as much as £150 less on the other.

As the market is decidedly less buoyant than it was when I last advertised for tenants, he recommended I cut my asking prices by five to 10 per cent. When I told him that I'd already had a lot of interest from potential tenants at the existing rents, he admitted private landlords are actually achieving higher rents than letting agents.

"Everyone wants to deal directly with landlords these days, they don't go to an agent unless they absolutely have to, we're actually struggling with rentals," he told me in all honesty.

I also found it interesting that his agency, which has branches nationwide, has significantly reduced its fees for both landlords and tenants, ditched "admin" charges for tenants ahead of the government's proposed ban on tenancy fees, and cut landlords' commission from 11 per cent to nine.

Even better, it no longer charges renewal fees to landlords who are happy to arrange renewals privately with their tenants. If other letting agents are making similar cuts, I suppose it will make landlords more likely to use them, especially as their fees are tax-deductable. However, if you can get more rent by doing it yourself and advertising privately, it is a bit of a no-brainer. It takes a tricky market for agents to get real. Victoria Whitlock lets four properties in south London.

To contact Victoria with your ideas and views, tweet @vicwhitlock.