Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

[Troffy]

Hi guys, i’ve not been in the trade long so i want to pick your brains about letting agency work, i’m getting a good reputation in the area as someone who knows what there doing and a large letting agency has heard this and has offered me some work, should i take it on or not, i just want to know if this is a good thing, bad thing, nothing to worry about, do they pay up on time? do they expect you to be there monkeyboy on call, any advice would be good

cheers Ian

[goosegreen]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

Hi, Ian I have been working for seven letting agency’s for the last 8 years and have found that they are quite demanding because if the the tenant is giving them ear ache they want the job done yesterday!. I have never been knocked for payment but if you just miss the rent cycle it can be 6 weeks before you get paid, Saying that I always add a bit on to the bill to cover waiting for payment. My favorite agent pays cash on receipt of my invoices 😆 So I save a week or two’s and walk out with a nice little bundle.

Goose

[Lawrence]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

Hi
More and more of my work is letting agents and housing associations ,in my experience they want no aggro .
I have just gained a very lucrative deal because the guy they were using wouldnt call afer 5pm and wouldnt supply new machines if required .
They also want to be kept in the loop so we ask them to send over a works order that we reply to immediately ,then when the tenant is booked ,and finally when job is done ,informaation overload but they love it .
Lawrence

[LJDomestics]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

If you can work flexible hours,Be at each job within a few hours, keep your prices competative then agency work can be very rewarding.

[SWERV]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

we do alot of letting agents work, and they are good bread and butter. Yes they can be demanding,and you might have to wait for your money. but if you build up a good rapport with them and do a good job, they will pass your number out to all and sundry.There are a few bad ones out there, but the good ones out number the bad.

Merv

[gandh1]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

worth doing really, unless your in the surrey area then steer clear! *marks territory*

yeah letting agents like the fact they can “touch base” with you, so they can absolve themselves of all problems!

basicaly – clean nose i.e. decline jobs you are not confident with (as long as they arent too simple!) and u shud be ok,

accept difficult jobs once you have the ability to repair within 5 working days!!!

[squadman]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

Letting Agents are just like any other customers in that there are good ones and bad ones ! We have been working with a number of letting agents over the last eight years and apart from two who were far more agro than they were worth we have a stable relationship with a number of them. They all accept our business terms which is that when they place a call with us they pay our labour costs upfront, we go out and access what needs to be done, once we have done that we ring from the site and provide them with the parts costs, they then pay for the parts and the job is concluded, no waiting weeks or months for our money and in return they get a speedy solution to their problem.

For landlords and agencies who will not pay in advance we let them go waste their time ringing round to find some mug who will waste thier time giving them FREE estimates and in the process going through hoops for them, I take the view that we have educated ourselves to the extent that we can circumvent these businesses and let our compeditors take the bother that normally goes with these people.

One letting agent who approched us for work came with the tale that the company that was doing all of their work was unreliable and they needed a company like ours who would be reliable. We found that they were continually supplying wrong keys to properties, late paying and them had the bloody cheek to ask that we lower our labour rate as they reckoned they were giving us plenty of work. Subsenquntly after a short meeting we got shot of them and they began the journey again of trying to get some poor engineer to to accept their terms of work !

Go Figure I say

[Troffy]

Re: Letting Agency jobs, the good the bad and the ugly ??

Thanks for the advice guys, i’ll see how it goes with the agency, i did a job for them yesterday and they just said send us the bill and we’ll pay it so hopefully they’ll be good for my new business, thanks again for the input

Ian (Broughton Appliance Repair)

[Author]

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