A new lettings service is set to launch tomorrow in London and could prove controversial among agents.
upad will act as a ‘dating service’ for private landlords and tenants, cutting out agents.
Chief executive James Davis said that 75% of all lettings in London were agreed without agents, and this is the market he is going for. “There are one million tenancy agreements each year in London. I believe our service will be complementary to agents.
“I am a landlord myself and have used agents in the past. But the cost of using them is a huge issue to landlords.
“The £29.50 fee contrasts favourably with agents’ finders’ fees, which typically wipe out half the average landlord’s annual net profit.”
Landlords will pay £29.50 to have each property listed and the service guarantees to find them a tenant. Prospective tenants will be able to search by different criteria such as location, off-street parking and size.
He claimed that upad will launch with 70,000 properties but would not be drawn on how the database had been assembled. He also said the properties would be listed on all the major property portals apart from Rightmove, which will not list privately-available properties.
The portals it would be on included Fish4, Propertyfinder, FindaProperty, Prime Location, Globrix, Zoomf and Nestoria. But Gillian Kent, chief executive of Propertyfinder, said she had no knowledge of upad’s plans and did not accept private rentals or sales.
upad will not reference tenants but will offer advice to landlords, and it has links with a maintenance company which will be able to provide gas safety checks and Energy Performance Certificates.
Davis said he plans to take upad nationwide. A major consumer awareness campaign is also due to launch.
New lettings service launches tomorrow
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Comments
That looks expensive, I list my properties for free at PropertyIndex.com and only pay for qualified leads.. the results have been really impressive.
To ex landlord: Would that be the same WH Smith tenancy agreement that contained a fatal defect in the attached s.21 notice?
No, it's not rocket science, but should be done thoroughly. Most agents will use an independent referencing agency to verify ALL a tenants details and in the event of anything going pear shaped, can then prove 'due diligence'. If you are totally up to date with all legislation regarding the letting process, then why not DIY, as you say? It's only really when a Landlord gets a problem tenant and suddenly realises HE is breaking the law over some silly little detail that he wishes he'd got a professional involved. I didn't spend hours and hours studying legislation for fun - I did it so I can advise people effectively. Letting agencies should make more effort to train their staff properly. I went solo because the agency I worked for refused to train me, so I paid for it myself.
You can't buy knowledge or experience so thank you for your comment but I wonder what you would do if you had to sort out a Section 8 notice, or go to ADR for your deposit.....
I did it privately and used £10 agreement from WHsmiths! credit checked them and emplyment checked myself, letting agents did no more than that!!!Its not rocket science!! Alot of letting agents use cheap young staff who have no idea how to match tenants so if you have brains and balls, diy!!!! yeah
Nothing new about this...its Agency on the cheap and the quality of the service and Tenants will no doubt make the Landlord wish they had used a "proper" agent once the rent fails to be paid!!