New York Habitat has just published their very first London Vacation Rental Market Report. 

New York Habitat has been offering rental apartments in London since 2002.

Download London Vacation Rental Market Report 2008.

*St James Park, London

One of the reasons why people don’t want to rent through the letting agent is because they have heard horror stories about how much they charge for their services. It might be a bit less safe to give that holding deposit to a private person but hey – at least you know you don’t have to pay any mysterious sums to get the flat. 

Patrick Collinson shares his view in The Guardian about how letting agents have screwed everybody during the boom years charging ridiculous amounts for their service:

 It strikes me that the main project of the lettings business over the past 10 years of buy-to-let madness has been to:

a) charge extraordinary fees to first-time landlords; b) try charging the same fees to the tenant; c) charge it all again at the end of the six-month shorthold tenancy; and d) disappear as soon as the landlord or the tenant needs something done.

I love the makey-up world of letting agents and their preposterous fees. The huge finder’s fee to landlords and as much as £400 to tenants for “administration” – which amounts to a few pieces of photocopied contracts. A credit check fee (£150?). An inventory fee (£80?). An insurance fee. A checking out fee. A cleaning fee. They simply make up these charges as they go along, hoping that the mainly young clientele think they have no choice but to pay up. These vulnerable young people, often laden down with student debt, are hit with a load of tripe. They are spurious items which, if they have any basis in fact, should fall on the landlord, not the tenant.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents ARLA is currently eagerly waiting for the government to regulate the business as more and more agents turn to lettings but who knows how long that will take. In the meanwhile, we think there are things that could be done right now to help make the market become more transparent, and service providers more trustworthy. 

ARLA should ask their member agents to publish the fees on their websites.

You don’t go to the shop and call the cashier for the price for each item you get, do you? Most of the letting agent listings do not display a tag with the real price, and this does make renters cautious. Who knows how much they charge – I’d rather find a home advertised by the owner at Gumtree, even if there are more risks involved in dealing with the private person.

We think the tenants should be able to conveniently see all the costs that renting through letting agent involves in order to be able to plan ahead, and compare different service providers. Either show them in the listing or on a separate page that could be easily found.

Adding a little transparency would be really good for the market. It would be a steady step towards gaining back that trust the letting agents seem to have lost in public’s eyes.

© propertylive.co.uk

The estate agents’ portal PropertyLive has finally revealed the identities of the people on their site.

They are in fact all working in the property industry, and one of the most interesting characters is indeed Mr. Dickinson from Douglas & Gordon. Just as we suspected.

Too bad City of Westminster is still the only area we can search. 2241 rentals available there at the moment.

*Kensington

We have recently received a few comments advising us to not promote letting agents who are known as dodgy.

If only we were experienced enough to be able to tell who truly deserves to be condemned!

Agent rating websites such as AllAgents.co.uk are full of reviews about agents. Buyers, sellers, renters and landlords are urged to rate and comment them to help other people make better choices. Now almost all reputable agents there have received some very poor reviews. Looks like any agent could become our worst nightmare! Even the agent we’ve had the most pleasant experience with has been referred to as dodgy.

If we don’t know the whole story, then we cannot be sure we’re not about to spread a rumour here that is untrue. The “well wisher” could easily be a competitor, could be leaving out some important details, or is just evil by nature. Just kidding with the last one.

We actually have condemned a few agents proved to be scammers. Remember Hot Lets?

There’s a comment on hold in our blog that says the agent we talk about has deceived them out of £2500… :S That is basically all they say, too.

By publishing this comment that contains such little information, we risk turning our blog into a toilette wall in the long run. Also, would we be in violation of the privacy law if we made accusations and named names without a court judgment or the accused one’s consent?

We have now E-mailed the person who left us that comment, asking if they could tell us the whole story. We’ll see where it leads us.

(c) Marsh & Parsons Brook Green office

Top 10 Tips for Tenants by estate agent Marsh & Parsons.

Remember when we said it wouldn’t be advisable for agents to translate their website with Google Translate as it could lead to misunderstandings?

Estate agent Ludlow Thompson has found a rather acceptable way around it IOHO. Clicking on the flag of the desired language leads you to an opening page that says:

Important Note:

Online translation facilities are not always totally accurate.
It may happen that the translation of some words do not fully correspond to their original meaning.

As long as we tenants are aware that this is Google Translate, and not an original 100% correct translation, there will be no problems, right?

Would be interesting to see what Ludlow Thompson’s website statistics say and how much are visitors using these translated pages.

Click here to see the list of twitterers who have something to say to London renters.

We will be updating the list, so please do not hesitate to tweet us if you want to be seen on it!

Estate agent DomusNova‘s website is simply addictive.

We’ve just spent an hour on it looking at the pictures of the rentals – seeing the photos full screen is just so enjoyable.

DomusNova operates in West London – covering postcodes W2, W8, W9, W10, W11, W12, NW6, NW10.

You will love their full screen interactive local map (click LOCAL on the menu), and the navigation system which is built up so that you won’t have to do much clicking.

The website was launched in September last year.

Jump to www.domusnova.com

So, when was the last time you looked at the estate agent’s window?

Hunters estate agents has 24 branches from Andover to Harrogate and is now recruiting 750 people. But these new staff members will not be working in the branches. Instead, they will be “mobile operators” working across the UK from their cars and homes rather than traditional high street offices. The firm has already tried out the no-office sales strategy and claims it to be a success.

They have not been operating in London but I guess there are no limits now?!

I know that agents are rarely in the office anyways. If organised well, why not, if it helps cut the costs, and make the service cheaper…

Is this the end of tenancy agreements on paper?

Guardian: Out of office estate agents

Winkworth estate agents say they have seen a 30% increase in rentals activity from 2007. At the same time sales transactions decreased 50%.

Photo: Debenhams, Oxford Street

There’s a big Christmas sale over at Jacob Fox!

The banner says the rents have come down up to £100 per week but I just saw one apartment’s price cut by £125! Not bad!

Click here to see the list of more than 400 rentals in the majority of East London and parts of South East London. Their offices are in Canary Wharf E14 and Wapping E1W.

More discounts from estate agents!

Hudsons offers rent free period from the time a tenant moves in up to and including 31.12.2008 for selected properties. Not too many days left but even if it’s just a day – you’ll feel good about a bit of saving during this expensive month (unless you’re making the gifts yourself this year=wise choice).

Hudsons has rentals in Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, Soho, Covent Garden and Marylebone. Click here to jump to their website.

DOUGLAS & GORDON Kensington Office
Address: 22 Gloucester Road, London SW7 4RB
Click here to see D&G properties for rent in Kensington

What’s for rent?

Kensington features a good range of property to rent, mostly in period properties. In general, rental prices range from £400 per week for a one bedroom flat up to £5000 per week for good sized houses.

Why do people want to rent accommodation in Kensington?

Emily Nicholl (Associate Director, lettings) says “They like the fact that it’s quiet and residential, with good restaurants and quiet garden squares. Most of our tenants work in the city and so they appreciate the excellent transport links from Gloucester Road Tube station.”

(c) tfl.gov.uk

(c) W.A. Ellis

“It is still generally being reported that properties are not letting, are falling in value and that there are no new tenants coming into the market. This is absolutely not true. We are a team of 18 here at W. A. Ellis in Knightsbridge and we are all working at full capacity and have as many enquiries as we had this time last year,” says Lucy Morton, Managing Partner in charge of Lettings at W.A. Ellis.

We have never used their services before but know that they usually have very good quality photos of their properties, making the search so enjoyable. That’s definitely one of the reasons they are so busy – good presentation sells!

They are also one of the few agencies in London who have photos of their employees on their site. I feel it makes the company more trustworthy. See the people at W.A. Ellis.

W.A. Ellis covers all prime central London and you are welcome to check out their rental offers here.

Hamptons has decided to offer renters a Christmas discount for the month of December!

Sign a tenancy agreement with them before 31st Dec and you will get 50% off the first month’s rent.

Not all properties apply but all those that do have a confirmation in the ad.

Jump to Hamptons lettings.