What Does a Letting Agent Do?

A letting agent has the job of finding tenants for landlords who wish to let their property out. The role of letting agent can be quite extensive, although this is dependent upon the level of service that is selected by a landlord. Essentially the letting agent will advertise a property on the housing market; rather that the property being advertised for sale it will be advertised as being available for renting.

The number of properties that are being made available for renting in the UK has risen majorly in the last few years. As a result of this the lettings agent market has become much more competitive. A letting agent will take the first step of advertising a property to the market, this will usually be completed on the Internet and also within the local area. Usually letting agents will have a database of customers who are actively searching for a property and therefore this will be checked against in order to find any relevant potential tenants. If none are found on the internal database then there will be people from the housing market showed around the property.

Letting agents will organise viewings for potential tenants and will show these people around the property. It is important to have a letting agent that has local knowledge in order to get the best change of letting a property out to somebody. Usually landlords will select just one letting agent who will manage the property letting process. As well as being responsible for finding tenants for a property it is also possible to have a letting agent to manage a property on a full time basis. This means that any communications between a tenant and landlord will be managed by the letting agent.

This can often be useful as the letting agent will also be responsible for collecting the rent; obviously there are charges involved for such services. A letting agent will ensure that potential tenants are suitable by carrying out numerous checks. For example the letting agent will check whether the potential tenants can afford the property through carrying out financial checks. Once checks have been completed the letting agent will then manage the process of putting contracts in place between the landlord and tenants.