Letting Agency Fees - How can they be justified?

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Nov 2003
Posts
36,743
Location
Southampton, UK
So, I'm moving in to a two bed flat with my GF at the start of July and all is well. I can't for the life of me see how the agency can charge so much. The fees totalled over £450 for simply getting references, credit checks, writing an inventory and signing a contract. That must be a total of maybe 2-3 hours work or so. Ridiculous.
 
Associate
Joined
25 Dec 2009
Posts
615
They pay all those pretty blonde girls to show you round the flats etc. Then they rent their nice offices and decorate them smartly. They tend to hardly take any cut from the rent as they attract business on the percentage of the rent the landlord can take home. The other main source of profit is at the end of the lease they will charge you £160 to change a lightbulb because apparently it needs a qualified engineer. (No joke that happened to me)
 
Man of Honour
OP
Joined
17 Nov 2003
Posts
36,743
Location
Southampton, UK
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Are you an estate agent or something? It's not even specialised work needing skilled people.

No room for haggle Burnsy ?

If they price drop, close the office for 48 hrs. ;)

Yeah, I they did seem a bit shifty when I was there. I think that needs further investigation by a specialist team :D

I didn't realise to haggle. Apparently it's the accepted thing, but it seems I've already agreed to it. Ah well live and learn.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
10,042
Mine is charging me 120quid to renew our current tenancy. Basically were signing an identical contract. Day light robbery.
 
Permabanned
Joined
29 Aug 2003
Posts
31,330
Only ever rented a flat once when I was 17-18, there was letting fees but they were a margin on the monthly rental. plus a deposit up front obviously and a months rent.

As far as I can remember there was no 'fee' upfront for the agents.
 
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