Cheltenham Letting Agents Landlord Guide

Flats to let cheltenham lettings agent Part 1 – Choosing Your Letting Agent

Are you a Cheltenham based or perhaps out of town landlord with a town house, city flat, bungalow, barn conversion, country home or luxury apartment to let out on the Cheltenham or wider Gloucestershire property rentals market?

Cheltenham has a steady influx of prospective tenants looking to rent quality properties at the correct prices. As a lettings agent myself I have several years of experience in assisting tenants in finding a home to rent as well as in providing landlords with a suitable tenancy let for their key investment. Not only this but I am also a lifelong tenant and fully appreciate the desires and concerns of those looking to letting agencies to help them find the dream house or flat, or at least one free of ongoing annoying problems.

For the landlord with a house or flat to let and little knowledge of the rentals market or the main players in the local property industry residential lettings can be a daunting business. Choosing the right agent is paramount and with over 60 different agents operating in the town in can seem to be like a lettings lottery. Too many landlords will simply choose the biggest or the cheapest when in fact both are potentially terrible mistakes.

The letting agents with the most property may well struggle to offer you the service you expect as your property may not be overly valued by them. The letting agents offering the cheapest rates (typically around 8%) may rely on getting lots on quickly and therefore only needing to let the best of it to make profit whilst happily letting many new take on’s simply fall through the cracks. The key to deciding if such agents are right for you is to ask around about them and see what other landlords or tenants have made of their services.

Post the collapse of the real estate sales markets in Europe many shrewd minded individuals have looked at the residential lettings market as a stable business to delve into. In Cheltenham alone we have seen over a dozen new lettings agents open their doors during the last year. Some of these are reputable and have knowledgeable staff whilst others perhaps do not. There is also something to be said for an agent having a deeper knowledge of local trends and market peculiarities which tends to come from being well established and having good links with local businesses.

Talking to a well-established agent will provide insight into the direction in which pricing trends are headed as well as what types of property are in most demand in the various districts. They should know how best to market your property and which key features to highlight for an assured fast let. Not only that but they should have relationships with key recruiters in the area such as GCHQ or the NHS to name but two. 92% of rental income being attributed to your account rather than 88% may sound wonderful but a void period due to an agents laxidasical methods or simple lack of market knowledge could end up costing far more than the small percentile difference. We might summarise this as the 100% of nothing still being nothing scenario.

There is then a lot to be said for approaching a letting agent of a medium size with a solid history of renting homes in the town. Of course make sure they also use the major property portals such as Rightmove, Primelocation, Findaproperty and Globrix. You might be surprised to find they only use one of these or even none at all. As well as these e-considerations ask them what other marketing tools do they use that separates them from the pack. Of course always take a look at their own major marketing tool, the company web-site, assess whether you find it to be professionally constructed and user friendly

Last but not least consider the staff that you encounter. Do they seem to know what they are talking about and would you want to be their client whether as a landlord or as a tenant?

Bruce Fenton
Sales & Marketing Manager