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I heart estate agents

I love the way you phrase things. :D

Local shop windows are the place to look for private lets, but of course that's difficult to do when you're not living in the area. And I can't keep an eye out for you because those areas are faaar away.
 
electrogirl said:
I'm new to this game. My last landlord gave me the keys without even asking for a deposit and went off to watch the football and recently when I asked about getting my depost back he said 'oh yeah, how much was it?'

London seems to be more of a dog eat dog world where places get snapped up by pyschics.



tbh half the problem is i'm still in bristol atm so it's my friends doing most of the looking and they're not up for rooting through gumtree for private properties. There's not much I can do about it, I keep ranting on abotu what wankers they are but I feel a bit mean because I'm not really doing any of the hard work apart from the weekend I was down in London and I got to go in the tiny beep beep car that I was embarassed to get out of.
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Do your friends have a lot more money than you? Are they moving to accommodate you? If gumtree is online, can't you look? Why do they not want to look? Are they really okay with forking out all that to foxtons or whoever?
 
malcolm eggs said:
i know the feeling. it took me weeks on gumtree to get lucky and even then it was through an agent. there were no private landlords that i could find. just scammers and agents.

at least this one wasn't foxtons though. i'd have put the phone down. even scum like me look down on them.
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seeeeeeeeee! There really does seem to be very few private landlords and places get snapped up in seconds.
seeeeeeeeee sadken.
 
electrogirl said:
THERE IS NO ONE RENTING PRIVATELY

okay there are maybe 3 per 100 flats out there.
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Foxtons are not estate agents

There ARE people renting privately and I have arranged two evening viewings today.

I repeat Foxtons are not estate agents
 
Why not look at a few properties through agents? Some landlords do use agents just to find tenants then sort out contracts, putting the deposit in holding, then you have nothing to do with the agent after that.

And listen to Badgers ;)
 
youbeauty said:
Do you need three bedrooms or are two of you a couple?
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3 beds. pls.
BiddlyBee said:
Why not look at a few properties through agents? Some landlords do use agents just to find tenants then sort out contracts, putting the deposit in holding, then you have nothing to do with the agent after that.

And listen to Badgers ;)
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Sorry I am listening, I'm just saying that I know there are private landlords but they just seem to be hard to find. Every property on rightmove takes you to an estate agents. I don't really knwo what you mean about looking at properties through agents? Wouldn't that mean still paying agency fees etc?

Sorry if I sound like a bozo derek like I said I've not done the london property market before and it's a jungle out there.

What is foxtons though then?
 
Scanning through findaproperty / propertyfinder / globrix etc using the postcodes & your price range / no of bedrooms as a guide really isn't that difficult - its all agents* not private landlords but its got to better than just going through Foxtons.

* not that some of the 'agents' aren't dodgy as fuck mind :mad:.

Petermans & Burnet Ware Graves are both reasonable local S London estate agents ime - big enough (2 or 3 branches) not to be fly-by-night but nowhere near as annoying or rip off as Foxtons.
 
Foxtons are rip off merchants ;)

Yeh, you probably do still have to pay fees, but not £350! It'd be something like £50 for admin fees or something. I dunno, although renting privately is better, I wouldn't write off looking at properties through agents. What if you come across a place that's decent, the fees aren't that bad, and the agents just leave you be?
 
Ms Ordinary said:
Scanning through findaproperty / propertyfinder / globrix etc using the postcodes & your price range / no of bedrooms as a guide really isn't that difficult - its all agents* not private landlords but its got to better than just going through Foxtons.

* not that some of the 'agents' aren't dodgy as fuck mind :mad:.

Petermans & Burnet Ware Graves are both reasonable local S London estate agents ime - big enough (2 or 3 branches) not to be fly-by-night but nowhere near as annoying or rip off as Foxtons.
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That's what we've been doing though, the one we put a holding fee down with wasn't actually foxtons it was ludlowe and thompson and they wanted some ridic referencing fee and loads of rigmorale and didn't get us the flat in the end anyway.

Thatnks for the tip off on those branches though I'll have an investigate.:cool::)
 
At least, by my memory from living in Balham, private landlords exist in Zone 3 even if they're as rare as rocking horse shit. Out here in Z5? Nothing. :(
 
Finding private landlords directly is NOT easy. You pretty much have to look through agents unless you only want to look at two flats in twice as many weeks.

If estate agents show you places which have still got people in them though, one of you can distract the agent while another gets the landlord's phone number off the soon-to-be-ex tenants and then you can try calling them direct.

If you find somewhere you like and the agents are asking silly money for fees etc tell them as much; they can be bargained down.
 
Burnet Ware Graves are a bit heavy on the fees compared to Petermans tbh but apart from that, they seem reasonably human.
 
I found my new house on gumtree......was half heartedly looking, but not expecting to find anywhere for a good six months, saw it, went and looked at it and it was perfect.

And although he's not an agent, my landlord has a few properties, but he still doesn't believe in charging bollocks fees etc (although I still had a 5 week deposit to find etc) and I definitely got more for my money than I would have done going through an agency.

Keep checking!!!
 
Oh and it's best to abandon the ridiculous idea that the picture in the advert might actually be of the property it's advertising. Especially on Gumtree. If you're lucky the postcode might nearly match reality.
 
a friend of mine's son worked for Foxtons. the son was having a friendly chat with some bloke in the pub and told him this.

bloke beat him up and put him in hospital.

that is all.
 
I've been in London for 17 years and have only once had the misfortune to have to use an estate agent. There are loads of private landlords in London.

My last 2 places came via the gumtree to, so quite frankly I think you're talking shite teuchter.

You just have to put a bit more effort into looking.
 
I can't believe you thought Foxtons were estate agents - that is PRICELESS!!!!!

Also, why the shit don't you just listen to badgers? Have you been drinking Tizer or something?
 
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