An online lettings platform has accused letting agents of inflating rental valuations to secure instructions.
Hello Neighbour urges landlords to be aware of “too good to be true” promises of rent increases by letting agents keen to win their business.
The platform says: There appears to be a common practice of over-inflating a rental price at the point of initial listing (presumably to win a landlord’s business).
“Often a few days after a property has begun being marketed, the rental price is then reduced.”
According to the platform, there is on average 15% drop from the initial listed compared to what is actually agreed as the rental price by the tenant, with areas recording the highest drops in price located in central London,
South West London and North West London.
“According to our data, High street lettings agents are over-inflating rental prices,” it added.
“We hear this time and again from landlords that have switched to Hello Neighbour from high street agencies.
“Tip: make sure your advertised rent is supported by a wide range of data and that your agent can access and process today’s huge tenant demand quickly.”
Overvaluing to win an instruction ? Be it Sales or Lettings, this practice is as old as time.
This will continue as long as our industry fails to self-regulate and effectively police or sanction appropriate penalties.
Those who seek to act professionally will regularly come up against such chancers and feel pretty raw that there is little support to outlaw such behaviour.
Newbies, such as this complainant, beware.
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Regulation will not make any difference
Any val is just a personal opinion
I do not believe that you have never valued a house at a lower price than another agent who has then sold it at a higher price than your guess
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This is very true, we are seeing it here all the time at the moment. Along with LLs over-egging the pudding because we are going through a period of flux where the market is on their side. What is important to remember is that over-egging the pudding can lead to egg on your face in the long-run!
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“According to our data, Online lettings agents complain 1,234% more than High Street Agents”
“We hear this time and again from landlords that have switched to a High Street Agent from an Online agent just how bad their service is”.
“Tip: make sure your advertised rent is supported by a local agent with comprehensive knowledge of the area.”
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Major headache, not just with new landlords but existing seeing their mate in the pub get outlandish rent (lol to reality) and wanting a piece of the action.
You can ask what you like, its what the consumer considers fair and able to afford, even in these desperate times for many looking for a roof, that matters. If you are hyping it, then you should be able to prove affordability for the tenant you find. If not, in this market it won’t take long for you to get a real bad name as an agent, which is counter productive to longevity. Always found the chancers coming into the market sales or lettings, but none stay the course, but boy do they cause a headache for the rest of us. Its life!
Currently we see daily some outrageous hyped rents being asked, which everyone is laughing at and none of them are with letting agents!
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