The fact that they're a bunch of bottom feeding parasites is probably a good start.

Can I say what I like? I'm a tenant, and the agent is prompt to respond and get things done. Stuff that needs LL approval of course takes a bit longer, but anything in the normal round is done in good time.

We had the heating go off just before Xmas. The agent had someone there within the hour. (By comparison, our last LL did everything himself - slowly and resentfully.)

Honestly, superb service from these agents. I assume the LL is happy too, since she uses them for all her properties.

Transparency of fees is a must. You are going to be competing with the likes of online agents on the low end and premium agents on the high end. You will find it hard to under cut the online agents so be transparent - nothing will lose you business faster than hidden costs.

Keep repair costs / certifications costs down. We can all use Checkatrade for repairs and find cheaper engineers for certifications, so it’s easy enough to know when we are being over charged. Happy to pay a small premium for convenience but don’t go crazy.

Get a good deal on rent guarantee and legal expenses. Rent reform act without judicial efficiency will kill landlords at the lower spectrum of affordability if the tenant stops paying rent!

Finally and most importantly, when introducing tenants don’t think about how quickly you can close the deal, rather go above and beyond basic referencing. Remember it will be your property management team that will have to deal with any issues so recognise your interests are actually very much aligned with the landlord when finding good quality tenants. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that a pass on a reference report and having rent guarantee is good enough - the world has changed!

I hate it when you ask letting agents to get work done and they literally ignore you and make you look like a shitty landlord when in reality it's because they can't lift a finger.

My agent is fantastic, he doesn’t charge any fees or take a percentage of arranging a contractor to fix anything, I just pay the tradesman, my estate agent takes 8% and 2% vat, but above all he is on my side when it comes to any disputes , I have had Connells they just charge you for everything, hope that helps OP

Habitual liars. Deception at every opportunity. Shaft tenants, landlords and tradesmen.

Not managing nightmare tenants appropriately or being aware of your responsibilities managing a property.

The issue is that majority of agents are just sales people, no knowledge of the law and how things are meant to be. How can someone like that protect the landlords interest?

We need to hold individual agents responsible, not just agencies. Put a higher standard on the industry, perhaps a license to be an agent.

You’re asking for some abuse. A while back I did an ask me anything as a manager at a letting agency. Got a fair bit of abuse - it’s fair game, most of us are shite. If you’re starting a letting agency, I’d probably make sure you have 1-2+ years worth of savings behind you.

They are utterly clueless about the most basic aspects of their job. They will happily lie to your face. They are never, ever proactive. They need to be hounded to do everything and then they do eventually do something there’s a string chance they will fuck it up. They will never admit to being wrong and make even the most simple things incredibly complex because of it.

Estate agents that deal with lettings can be more toxic than abusive relationships. The past 2 I've had have been horrendous. One had a leaking roof that I reported 8 times and had numerous contractors come out and say that it needed a new roof. I handed in notice, and suddenly, the roof got replaced. No communication. The roofers also broke into the house whilst I was still living in it to use the toilet. That was a fun day. The next house had a broken front door. They won't fix it. They told me to get house insurance. Then they gave me a section 21 and offered me a house double the price, and when I said, Why do you think that's acceptable and they said well you'll pay it or be homeless. They have been absolutely terrible towards me. I said I was in the market to buy and suddenly they became nice. When I didn't buy with them, they became horrible. I offered to buy the house I'm currently in, and they over inflated the price by 20k! Then they got offended when I offered what it was actually worth.

As a tenant, I had a letting agent that started pretty good, then got shitty. My landlord is in the process of firing them to directly manage the property themself. 

The good things in the beginning was that they were very responsive. I was moving to the UK from abroad and they were flexible about some of the logistical quirks that came with that. They also were very patient about answering all my dumb questions since it was my first time renting in the UK and my first time renting at all on my own. They responded promptly to maintenance requests. 

The one annoying thing from the beginning was that they insisted that rent be paid in 6 month installments. I didn't just have to pay the first 6 months rent upfront, but twice a year I had to pay 6 months of rent in one go. This wasn't something my landlord requested, it was 100% the letting agent. After a year, I requested to switch to monthly payments. I thought this would be a no brainer since I'd been paying rent on time and it was a resonable request. Instead they sent me a really snarky reply and said that for a £100 fee, I could switch to paying once every 4 months. I asked what it would take for us to eventually move to monthly payments. They never responded. 

After that, they started not taking maintenance requests seriously. They either didn't respond to my requests or just told me to diy a solution. Luckily, I had direct contact with my landlord and they reached out one day to clarify a message they got from the letting agent. The landlord I got talking and it turned out the letting agent hadn't informed the landlord of any of the maintenance issues I'd reported, which included some pretty major issues. The landlord was so pissed they issued a termination notice to the letting agent. The letting agent is now currently giving the landlord the runaround to try and keep them in the contract

We've worked with agencies in the past and almost to a man they have caused more problems than they have solved. They've not taken tenant selection remotely seriously, in some cases they have suggested unsuitable people we've later found out are extended family members. Before the tenant fees act one would routinely charge for basic things like photocopies (to the tune of £20+ per) forcing us to step in, we had an agency fail to notify tenants of substantial works (new windows on a 4th floor flat) which could have resulted in significant fees if they had to be rescheduled.

We've asked for recommendations for tradespeople that have turned out to be totally incompetent, had them not take tenants seriously when they need things fixed and we've had them not make note of quite serious problems during inspections. Basically the whole run of uselessness. I'll not say it has been entirely negative, we've had one agent in particular who has been wonderful, but when you get a poor one oh my god do they cause problems.

Ultimately I understand that an agency has to deal with multiple clients and you can't realistically be a bespoke service - I would just like someone to be proactive about problems, be communicative about important things, don't treat tenants poorly and if we need a tenant find service to actually listen to the criteria rather than just get the first person through the door. With the renter's rights bill coming it's going to be more and more important to be very critical about prospective tenants, so if I hire someone for that purpose I really need it to be done well.

I have never bothered going through an agency to get tenants, I just get respective tenants to give their details to a vetting company & I put their deposit in a government holding account & then I sign a contract with them and they move in. I am not paying fees when I can do the job myself. (Okay my husband does it)

No idea from a landlords point of view but:

The frequency of our LA inspections, 3 monthly and been here 6 years its a little intrusive.

Lack of repairs despite the over frequent inspections (9months with a shorting oven in my case)

General judginess.

We don't need them.

Good on you. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing this too but unsure where to start or how to build the portfolio of properties. Do you mind if I pm you for some tips? I’m also a landlord and have several properties. Most I manage myself but a couple with the agent.

The biggest issue I find with my current agent is they are very tardy in getting certifications complete which drive me nuts. I need to stay on top of them to do their job properly. The second gripe is their lack of provision of monthly statements! I think I can do a better job myself

Long story short, a leak was occurring in downstairs bathroom coming from my flat. Ist contract was with landlord he sent quite a few ' tradesmen' round over the year to fix it. The real tradesmen immediately identified the problem: a new wall and tiling at end of bath as it had been bodged by 'builder'. the others: silicone over silicone, etc etc. next year, he decided to use an agent which I signed a lease with. Over the next year, another 10 or so tradesmen looked at the problem. Towards the end of the second lease landlord disabled the bath/shower for two weeks, then his repairman phoned to say they will be putting a new toilet, floor, and bath shower in. No mention of hotel accommodation etc. I immediately emailed the agent who's solution was for us to move into a local hotel by the next day. Landlord also kept letting himself in. Agent did nothing. Was left without a bathroom for 6 weeks. When it was finally completed, it still leaked as the problem was what the realtrademan had diagnosed 2 years before, but the landlord obviously didn't want to pay for.

It seems agents are there solely to protect large landlords, whilst offering the world to smaller landlords whilst skimming as much off them as possible. We need to go back to when property agents were solely for company lets. They also impose prohibitory conditions on low income households even if they have a company guarantor. Guess they don't trust companies in the rental sector seeing as they're one themselves.

The lies.

The fake pictures. The changing of the price once you get there / suddenly uncovering hidden fees. The trying to push properties onto you that you’re not interested in and refusing to let you actually see the one you want. The telling you you can’t afford a certain property when you’ve paid the same amount of rent / more for the past x number of years. The treating you like you’re a second class citizen because you rent and aren’t a buyer. The ignoring you when you raise something but happily harassing you the second they want something from you. The fact you have to record every single conversation with them for proof because of the extent of the lies / the various different answers they all give to the same question. The gate keeping of flats when there’s multiple available in the same building (ie they won’t show you them all so you have a choice of your home, but will push the shittiest one on you so they can get the worst flat sorted first). The judgmental comments. The rudeness. As someone else said, the overly vague check in report containing one photo and minimal descriptions but the extensive dissertation on your check out report noting every little scratch alongside 100 photos. I honestly make myself ill with anxiety when moving knowing they’re about to pick apart everything at check out to try their very best to not return my deposit and scrounge as much as they can (and this is coming from someone who’s an absolute neat freak tenant who takes care of rentals like they’re my own).

Not to mention the unfair standards you’re subjected to if you live alone vs a couple / flatmates. As an example: in my current property (which I am leaving shortly) I was forced to pay a years rent upfront because they said I couldn’t afford it as I was £1k under the salary cut off that they deemed was the limit, so I failed referencing. This was despite the fact I was paying a higher amount of rent the year prior and had proof of extensive savings??? This was told to me one week before move in so I had no choice but to fork out a huge lump sum as otherwise I’d be left homeless. Then I was subject to the most intrusive and humiliating bout of further referencing that was way more extensive than the standard checks (including having to give them access to every single bank account, savings account and isa). The couple in the flat above me only had to earn half the amount because it was the same price split between two so got to do basic referencing and fast tracked their way in with no requirement for up front rent or intrusive checks… fast forward a couple of months and the couple upstairs are absolute nightmare tenants causing noise problems 24/7, they don’t work, they don’t sleep and are disrupting multiple surrounding flats. They end up getting thrown out and their deposit is not returned due to damage they’ve caused. It’s infuriating knowing how I was treated vs how they were, solely due to the technicalities of the agents arbitrary level of “affordability”, with no consideration taken as to who actually is a good tenant. (Ps not that I need to prove myself but have never missed a rent payment and can clearly afford it given I’ve paid covered my rent alone for the past 6 years (all around the same amount). The affordability limits they dictate are based on algorithms that are grossly unfair as they aren’t a one size fits all (ie I don’t spend my money going out drinking, partying or eating out, so I can afford to spend more on my home if I want to, but I get no say in that because they make the assumption I do when they come up with their %’s).

You have to be a special kind of person to be an estate agent and happily exploit people in the way they do. Never encountered worse humans in my life.