Worth getting a letting agency to rent out house?

bearhugs

Hi, I've searched around here but not found exactly the information I've been looking for. I want to rent out my house in the next few months for at least a year, probably more. Just wondering if its worth my while getting a letting agency to do this for me. Exactly what responsibilities do they undertake?

Do they take care of the lease, etc., or just find someone to rent the house? Do they sort out repairs and minor issues? Forgive my ignorance!

Also, if I were to rent it privately, would I need a solicitor to draft a lease agreement? And roughly how much would that cost?

Thank you in advance for any information you can give me

yellowtrout

You can contact a letting agent and they'll charge you a fee for finding a tenant. They will advertise the property for you and when potential tenants contact them, they'll arrange the viewings and take references if you need them, before passing them onto you.

You can then choose who lives in the house.

They can also draw up the lease too (no solicitor needed) and also collect the rent on your behalf, if you so wish, but I'm not sure about them acting on your behalf when it comes to repairs or problems in the property. (Maybe someone else can enlighten you on that one?)

Ironically, I am looking for a property at the moment, lol..it isn't in Dublin by any chance is it?

J-blk

bearhugs wrote: »

Do they take care of the lease, etc., or just find someone to rent the house? Do they sort out repairs and minor issues?

I believe many EAs offer 2 types of service: either they take on renting your property for you (and yes, they will take care of the lease and find/vet tenants for you) and once rented, their job is done or they manage the property for you during the rental (so they are the point of contact for the tenants to complain to, request repairs, etc). I'd imagine the 2nd service is quite pricier, since it is more responsibility on their end and they would be working for you for the entire rental period rather than a few days/weeks to rent the place out.

As to is it worth it? I'm speaking only as a tenant, but my answer would be a resounding no though it depends on your circumstances I guess. Can you rent the property yourself (you can get standard leases online and modify them to suit your needs - a solicitor does not need to draft it up. Certain rights cannot be waived regardless of what you put in a lease, so it's not quite as legally binding as you may think)?

As for the managing it yourself, it really depends too. First off, are you moving away or can you actively manage the place as needed? How much of a pain this will be depends on your tenants too, some will bother their landlord over any little thing, others you'll never hear from during the rental.

I've had experience of both EAs renting the place out and managing it and in both cases I've found them to be useless - anyone with some common sense can do it themselves IMO. One of the first places I rented in Dublin was EA managed and the EA's webpage promised the landlord things such as "minimum 3 inspections a year", etc. We only saw that EA when we signed the lease and when it was up for renewal. We could have trashed the place in the meantime and they would be unaware for the entire year...

When renting it out, they don't do much more than opening the door for people and doing the paperwork for you. And just do a search for all the stories here where the EA can't even be arsed to show up for viewings (even now!) to see that they might even drive potential tenants away.

bearhugs

Thanks for the replies. The house is in the midlands. Maybe I should try advertising it myself first then having an agency find a renter if this is not successful. Doesn't sound like they are worth the money really. I will be moving out of the country which is why it would be great to know the little day-to-day things would be taken care of, rather than having to sort them out from abroad. Thanks for all the info guys!

Silverscott

I priced this recently.
And the fee was one months rent app 550 i think they said
To find tenants, get references and advertise and supply lease.
For them to manage property it was 8% a month charge to send in there repair men, but i suspect it wouldnt cover parts or materials etc

In the end i done it all myself.
Couldnt justify a months rent.
An add in the paper aint that much 10 to 20 euros in my local paper.
Plenty of online places also.
A lease can be taken off the net for free, solictor would charge 200 plus for same thing.
You get to meet tenants yourself and will have a fair idea by the look of them if they are doggy.
Ask for pps number or current landlord if they shy away from this say goodluck to them.
The tenants have rights to stay on after a year if they want to, you have to give them notice that you want to move back into house or else need them out as you are doing it up etc.
Insurance will go up as you are not living in house so you have to be aware of this.
You will have to pay 200 euro local charge for a house you own that you dont live in.
90 euro to the prtb.
If you have a morgage with tax relief you could loose this also.
Check everything out before you move or sign anything.
Goodluck.

athtrasna

bearhugs wrote: »

I will be moving out of the country which is why it would be great to know the little day-to-day things would be taken care of, rather than having to sort them out from abroad. Thanks for all the info guys!

In this case you will need either a letting agent or a friend/relative who is willing to act as your tax agent for tax purposes. In the case of non-resident landlords, tenants are supposed to withhold 20% of the rent and forward that directly to Revenue (good luck with that!) unless you have a tax agent who files tax returns on your behalf. It's a service many letting agencies provide.

nukin_futs

As a tenant I would not like to deal with letting agents. Bad experiences from the start of poor service:
- bad ads with no or poor pictures (most cases they list the property on daft and myhome.ie - could do a better job yourself);
- poor at taking enquiries/queries;
- only schedule viewings to suit themselves (was told that it would be impossible to do an evening or weekend viewing on one property, the ad remained up for 6 months after I saw it!);
- kept waiting to hear about viewings and then find a bulk viewing, 5/10/15 people at once in space of 15 mins. First come first served without being made clear.

Never rented from one because of these reasons and that I couldn't imagine any after service would be any better based on these performances. Regardless, if the right property was being let by one I would probably take it.

My current landlord has moved abroad. Find it easy to keep in touch via text, phone and e-mail. Have only had to contact twice, once because of a problem and once to notify of some wind damage to a fence.

As others have pointed out lease is easy, however you could find yourself with a problem-tenant who rings requesting that you change the lightbulbs. If you had a friend relative who was willing to be a point of contact or call out on your behalf, contact repairmen if necessary etc, I would think this would be a better solution.

You need to do the sums yourself to see how it stacks up.

Leslie91

I've used a letting agent to (1) find me tenants and (2) manage a property.

I was lucky, I found a great one. There are many chancers out there who don't really care who they put into your place/charge silly percentages.

If you were in Dublin I can recommend them.

TaffyBaker

Leslie91 wrote: »

I've used a letting agent to (1) find me tenants and (2) manage a property.

I was lucky, I found a great one. There are many chancers out there who don't really care who they put into your place/charge silly percentages.

If you were in Dublin I can recommend them.

Can you pm me the details of which agent you used in Dublin please, thanks!

Funnyonion79

yellowtrout wrote: »

Ironically, I am looking for a property at the moment, lol..it isn't in Dublin by any chance is it?

Hi Yellowtrout, I'm planning to rent out my property in Sept - based in North Dublin so pm me if you want any more details.