Guildford Letting Agent gives tips to Landlords

I have just lost a property! The LL managed to let the property himself, we only had it for 2 days and he found someone through gumtree.
Despair!!
But for who......?

We were instructed on Thursday, conducted viewings on both Thursday eve and Friday then Saturday morning the LL calls and says the property has been let to students. They are moving in on Monday!!!
I asked if he had referenced them, did they have a guarantor, had he done credit checks on each tenant and their guarantors? He replied everything was fine...so what could I say but "well done" even if i was a little sceptical about the quality of the referencing.

Today, Friday (4 days after they moved in) I have been phoned by the neighbours (they saw our board) with complaints regarding the new tenants behaviour, noise and general attitude. We could not help as we were not managing the property.

The tip today is if you feel you can let a property legally and reference tenants yourself then please do it. If you are just chancing your arm to save some money in the short term, one day, maybe not this year or the next one it will come back to bite you on the bum if you cut corners.

Average house is worth £300k in Guildford, would you trust someone off the street with that kind of investment without checking them out?

Belvoir are The Sunday Times Gold Award winning letting agent for 2010. Let! us do all the work.