How Can Buy-To-Let Investors Manage Property?

LONDON - April 1, 2013 - PRLog -- People who invest in real estate for buy-to-let can either choose to find tenants and manage properties themselves or with the help of letting agents. The assistance of letting agents usually comes for a fee which is though worth the services but fairly substantial.

A recent study has shown that letting agents in London can contribute to a great extent in making your property more marketable. Their “let-only” service typically offers a combination of searching, interview and vetting tenants along with completion of paperwork. This also includes collecting the deposit and rent for the first month. This service is usually offered for a fee of approximately 10 per cent of the total rent.

However, the “full management” service is like an extension of the entire set of tasks, except that the agent will continue to collect the rent for the rest of the months. Also, full management involves dealing with the routine maintenance and running of the property. This may cost nearly 15 per cent or more sometimes.

Landlords, who have large portfolios to manage or own properties in far away countries, essentially need the agent’s services. But for people who may not want to incur as much expenditure on agent services may go for one of the online lettings agencies available in the real estate scenario now. They basically allow landlords to promote their properties on various lettings websites, starting at approximately £100.

This system works in a blended manner where the landlords are made to interact with the tenants and they can conduct their own interviews, property viewings, etc. This allows both the parties to meet each other directly and make the decision on their own.

Present scenario suggests that the increasing competition among various letting agents has brought the fee down for let-only to almost six per cent and for full management to nearly 10 per cent of the rent. What type of service will suit your requirement the most depends upon the way you would like to go about handling your property and the cost that you would like to incur while opting for a buy-to-let option.

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