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Most Landlords Don’t Use Letting Agents to Manage their Properties
This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
The majority of landlords in England don’t use letting agents to manage their rental properties, according to the latest English Private Landlord Survey, covering 2018.
The Government report found that more than half (52%) of landlords did not use a letting agent to let or manage their properties in 2018. A third (34%) used an agent for lettings services, while one in ten (9%) used an agent for both letting and management services.
The remaining 5% only used an agent for management services.
These figures arrive ahead of the introduction of the Tenant Fees Bill this year, which the industry believes will reduce the number of landlords that use letting agents.
Under the new law, letting agents (and landlords) will be prohibited from charging upfront fees to tenants. As a result, it is believed that letting agents will increase their charges for landlords, in order to recoup some lost income.
The Government research found that landlords that entered the sector more recently were less likely to use a letting agent than longer standing landlords. A third (32%) of those who had been a landlord for three years or less were using an agent, while that proportion increased to almost half (46%) amongst those that had been landlords for between four and ten years.
More than half (53%) of landlords who had been in the sector for 11 or more years used an agent.
Comparing this to the Government’s previous data, in 2010, 43% of landlords stated that they had, at some point, used a letting agent to undertake the lettings and management of their property portfolios.
It will be interesting to see how these figures change once the ban is introduced, and its effects felt across the industry.
At the same time, landlords were asked whether they currently or previously belonged to one or more of the main private rental property professional organisations. The majority of landlords (75%) had no current or previous membership of any group.
13% reported current or previous membership of the National Landlords Association (NLA), while 9% were part of the Residential Landlords Association (RLA). 5% reported current or previous membership of another professional organisation.
We remind all landlords of how valuable the services of both letting agents and professional organisations can be in operating a successful and compliant lettings business.
