How to become a letting agent

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No qualifications or experience are required

Becoming a letting agent is both affordable affordable and straightforward with the well-proven Southcourt Business Package.

Our Business Package has been carefully designed and developed based on our long experience in starting and building our own successful agency in the UK property capital of London.

It consists of a modern, up to date and detailed letting agent training course and business start up package with everything that’s required to learn how to start a letting agency from scratch. The Business Package is based on a combination of own successful business model with which we grew our sizeable London agency and also includes the culmination of the experience of thousands of letting agents across the UK who have used it to successfully set up a letting agency.

All Inclusive Package

Within our letting agent training, business package and estate agent websites, we provide everything you need to start a successful letting agency. The training takes you from the basics of setting up the letting agency, through to advanced property management, client acquisition techniques and letting agency marketing to maximise your income growth.

Initial Research

Over 3000 UK letting agents have benefited from the knowledge and expertise we provide, and have found and marketed over 1 million properties using resources and techniques that we pioneered.

However, if you’re contemplating becoming a letting agent, we’ve found that initial research is vital if you wish to start with a solid foundation. Below we summarise the easiest way to familiarise yourself with one of the most important aspects – local rental levels.

It will be part of your service as a letting agent to provide a rental appraisal (approximate rental valuation) of a property to be let for your landlord client, and to agree a marketing rental with him. The landlord will generally respect your opinion of the rental level their property is likely to attract, and this will often be one of the first questions on their mind. If you’re wondering how to become an estate agent, you may also be interested in our training and business packages for estate agents.

Of course, offering the property at a realistic market rental rather than overpricing it will make all the difference between letting it speedily, or having it hanging around for weeks – a situation which benefits no-one.

Don’t worry, you won’t need to be precise with your valuations. In fact there is no such thing as a precise valuation, as various local agents will have slightly different ideas on the same property.

Basic Research and Sourcing the information

The speediest method of gaining an overview of local rental levels is to search on Zoopla or a local property website for properties to let in your town. Take a copy of the Research Sheet, which is included in our letting agent documents – Average Local Rental Levels and starting with studio flats, enter the advertised rentals, following the instructions on the research sheet.

Then do the same with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 bedroom flats and houses. We suggest that you complete at least 3 sheets, so that you are comparing about 45 properties of each size, totalling them all onto the last sheet. You can use your smartphone or a GPS sat nav system like Waze to help you get around.

When you have completed the research sheets, and used a calculator or spreadsheet to work out the average rental as we explain, you will arrive at 6 figures: the average rentals of each size of property according to number of bedrooms, i.e studio flats through to 5 bedroom properties. These 6 figures really are the only ones you need to commit to memory before starting a letting agency business in your area.

When you value a property, you’ll use these figures as a basis from which to work, and make a small adjustment (say between 5% and 10%) either up or down, depending on whether or not the property is furnished, its general condition, location in a nice/not so nice road, and proximity to public transport, shops and other local amenities which tenants favour.

Although this research may seem somewhat laborious for anyone considering starting a letting agency, it is nevertheless a vital process in the preparation stage, and will make all the difference between basic mistakes, or getting things right from the word go.

The average figures arrived at on your research sheet, combined with the adjustments, will enable you to give quite accurate valuations right from the start. And remember, there is no such thing as a precise valuation, as different agents will have slightly varying opinions. You can read more about rental valuations in Section 5 of the Letting Agent Training, which comes with the Business Package.

You can learn more about how to run a letting agency here.