How Are Lettings and Maintenance Managed by Online Letting Agents?
Finding the ideal online letting agent to manage your property can be a pretty tough task. When browsing each letting agent’s website, it’s easy to feel like everyone is offering the same thing, just dressed up slightly differently.
In a traditional high-street letting agency, if you have any concerns about the process, it’s just a simple case of asking the right questions – you’ll have the opportunity to decide whether that particular agent is right for you.
Free 30 days listings on:
- ✓ Rightmove
- ✓ Zoopla
- ✓ Mashroom
However, it’s not always quite so simple if you choose an online letting agent. Luckily, we’ve put together this handy guide to help you out; keep reading to discover everything you need to know about how online letting agents manage properties.
Tenant find services with online letting agents
As a landlord, one of the biggest advantages of choosing to let your property online is the sheer amount of exposure you’ll have with potential tenants. These days, there are plenty of online portals advertising a huge number of properties – it’s usually the first place people go when they’re looking to rent.
Rightmove and Zoopla are the UK’s two largest property portals – between them, they currently list around 2 million properties on their websites. As a result, it’s understandable why potential tenants would make these sites their first port of call – getting your property onto these databases should therefore be a priority if you want to get noticed quickly.
At this stage, you might be thinking ‘ Why do I need an online letting agent if I can just advertise my property on Rightmove or Zoopla?
And the simple answer is that you can’t. It’s only possible to access portals like these if you’re coming to them through a third party, and that’s where Mashroom comes in.
Mashroom advertises your property to the masses on these hugely popular websites, as well as on many others, maximising your reach to as many prospective tenants as possible. What’s more, unlike many of its online competitors, this service is free with Mashroom for the first 30 days.
Property maintenance with online letting agents
Once you’ve found your tenants, managing your property is likely to be your main focus. However, the maintenance of your property can often be a niggly and difficult part of the landlord experience. Fixing your tenants’ issue can take specialist skills and experience, and you’ll need a contact list of trustworthy tradespeople to get a lot of jobs done.
Building up reliable relationships like this can take years, not to mention the strain it can put on your wallet – especially if you end up with cowboy tradespeople.
Letting your property with Mashroom means you’ll have access to Local Heroes. Owned by British Gas and backed by a 4.7/5 rating from Trustpilot, Local Heroes features tradespeople who are reviewed after each job, so you know what to expect from their work when hiring them.
What’s more, the 3-step booking process is an absolute breeze :
- Simply book a Local Hero
- Receive a free quote (which is cancellable at this stage without paying a fee)
- And just pay
On top of that, every job that’s booked through Local Heroes comes with a 12-month guarantee.
Rent collection through online letting agents
Another headache that all landlords have to face is making sure that rent is paid in full and on time. No one wants to chase people , especially if you just get a new excuse every month. Let’s face it: the reason you decide to let property is to have a reliable and timely source of income, not to spend all your time chasing what’s rightfully yours.
You might assume that paying someone else to collect rent would cost a lot of money, and in most cases, you’d be correct. High-street or online letting agents usually charge a percentage of the rent as a fee for managing collection, but that’s not the case with Mashroom.
Mashroom’s free rent collection service lets you sit back, relax and watch the money roll in. You’ll stay in full control, while we facilitate the automatic transfers and check that rental payments are all correct and on time.
You’ll receive notifications when rent is paid, and you can keep track of all your income and expenses from your Mashroom dashboard. Unlike traditional rent collectors who often hold payments, you’ll get your money on the same day as it’s paid, and you won’t be charged to collect it.
Managing your tenancy agreements
Tenancy agreements are perhaps — the least exciting — but most essential aspects of the rental process for landlords and tenants alike. No matter how important this step is, it can be mind-numbing to sift through endless legal jargon, making sure that everything is above board and everyone is protected in any eventuality.
If you’re new to being a landlord, or even if you have lots of experience, reviewing a tenancy agreement takes time and effort, especially if you don’t feel totally confident about the legal implications of every detail.
Luckily, there are resources out there to help, such as the model agreement for a shorthold assure tenancy from the government’s website. While this is a good place to start and will be a useful guide to what a tenancy agreement should look like, this is not a one-size-fits-all issue – what might be ideal for a one-bed flat in central London is not likely to work as well for a four-bedroom semi-detached house in a rural location.
Many letting agents offer a standard tenancy agreement for all their properties, demanding an additional charge for a more tailored document.
However, we’ve simplified the process. Our baseline Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) is completely customisable. This means you can — adapt your tenancy agreement to work for you, and your tenants have the opportunity to request changes – although, there’s no requirement for you to accept them.
On top of all that, everything – even down to the signing of the contract – is completed online in a very simple process.
Choosing an online letting agent
Ultimately, choosing to let your property through an online letting agent will give you the best possible exposure, placing you in front of the most potential tenants.
Once a tenancy agreement has been drafted, customised and signed, getting help to manage your property is quick, easy and trustworthy. It’s also cost-effective if you decide to do everything through Mashroom.
