Despite the looming fees ban due next year tenants say their number one gripe about renting a property continues to be the “excessive fees” they are charged by agents, it has been claimed.
Lettings platform HomeRenter says 42% of the tenants it canvassed recently said they were unhappy about the large fees they had been charged, followed by having to chase agents and landlords about repairs (41%) and paying a security deposit (36%).
HomeRenter has also made the surprising claim that 90% of landlords would prefer to rent their homes direct to tenants, and that it’s an arrangement 70% of tenants would prefer too.
The surprisingly high figures are within research published today by HomeRenter, contradicting recent data from the National Landlords Association (NLA).
It recently said 61% of properties were rented through lettings agents, a figure the NLA said increased last year.
But HomeRenter says its research also shows that although 88% of landlords are happy with their rental arrangements, half of all landlords are frustrated by both poor service from their letting agent or poorly-behaved tenants.
“There is a clear dissatisfaction from both landlords and tenants towards traditional estate agents,” says Will Handley, CEO of HomeRenter (picture, left).
“The majority from both groups feel the service provided is not up to scratch and would rather cut out the middle man and connect privately with their landlord.”
As we reported last year, HomeRenter was launched as an Airbnb-style platform that claims to offer a ‘third way’ for property rentals, being neither an online agent nor a portal, but a mixture of both.
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