UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi everyone,

I have another question, this time regarding monthly rental price.

In my experience, my agents have rarely obtained the asking monthly rental price that they put my property (in London) on for.  They can normally only achieve £50-£75 under the asking. 

So, my question is this, when an agent gives you a guideline, do you go with that guideline or do you ask them to put the asking price say £50 more than what the top range that they suggest?

And do you think agents are 'lazy' - OK, silly question - and just want to put as little effort in to get someone in quickly?  Obviously, nobody likes a void period, but we landlords want to get the most that we should be able to for our property right??

Many thanks.

I don't inflate the price, no. But I don't get a single Agent's view. The last property I let, recently, had two wildly different valuations... one Agent suggested £750 per month, one suggested £895 per month. This is massively different. I thought the second was too optimistic, but I decided to negotiate Tenant Find with them on the proviso that we could both walk away if nothing had happened in 2 weeks.

The property was successfully let on the second viewing (done by me) for over £850 per month. It didn't make £895 but I always expect a haggle at anything over £500 to be honest and I was blown away by what it achieved. I had originally been thinking £775 or thereabouts.

Agents are mostly lazy... but doesn't that also make 'em kinda smart? Isn't it what we all want? Lots of money for little effort. It's why I decided to get some property, although the effort I'm expending cannot be described as little, so I may need to work on that. I am no fan of Agents, but I have a grudging respect for what they've ended up doing.

On price, it's all to do with desirability as well. I had prospective Tenants in a bidding war over a city centre flat I have... I lost out on an extra £100 per month because my morals told me I should stick to my agreement with the Tenant who I'd given the nod to, at the original price. Next time it will go on a bit higher.

Assume you have a property an Agent has valued at £900.

But you reasonably expect they'll get around £800 for it... and you've given them the verbal OK to accept £800 on your behalf. If you're just doing a Tenant Find engagement with them, then there's no incentive for the Agent to work harder. They'll just take their one-off fee and scarper with it - no incentive for them to get you any more than the £800. However, if you're doing Full Management then there might be... if you're doing 10% then the different to them each month will be a small amount, but maybe it's worthwhile... £80 per month vs. £90 per month.

It doesn't float my boat, though... I'd probably go for a quick turnaround at £800 and start pulling the £80 per month in. Human nature.

I wanted to try a slightly different approach which was OK... property targeted at a price (£X) and expected to probably achieve less (£Y)... then I said that anything between £Y and £X would would split 50-50 for the duration of the Tenant being there. So... if X was £900 and Y was £800 then it rented for £850 - I'd get an 'extra' £25 per month, but so would the Agent. Happy days. I kept this thought in my back pocket in case there was no interest, but - as I say - it got successfully let on the second viewing for closer to £X than £Y. Lucky.

You could easily agree a scale of mutual rewards like this... some Agents would love this kind of motivation, it's easy to give a discount with someone else's money.

Thanks for your input Hippogriff.  What you say makes perfect sense, I think I will ask my agents to put the property on for slightly higher than their valuation as it is being fully managed by them as well.