Yes, there are good estate agents in London! At Simply London, we are lucky to have met some of them.
But what on earth makes a good estate agent? The answer lies not in their looks (although another interesting topic), but in their processes and standards.
1 – A good estate agent will be truthful with the information they give to landlords and tenants. This means any important information about the property will be communicated to potential tenants, but equally, the offer presented by the potential tenant will be transmitted to the landlord with no interference from the agent.
2 – A good estate agent will be 100% clear (and trained) about the rental process. Unfortunately, a sometimes high staff turnover in some branches means that people can be poorly trained. The rental process means the sequence of processes and paperwork to be followed, in a particular order, leading to the full completion of the process and the tenant moving into his/her new home. At Simply London, we have sometimes found ourselves having to tell estate agents what to do next – this is not a good sign!
3 – A good estate agent will be proactive with deadlines. For example, by law, a number of documents now have to be handed over to the tenant before moving in. We often find ourselves having to chase these documents on behalf of our clients. With good estate agents, they are sent to the client in time, with no need for us to chase.
So how can you “recognise” a good agent from a bad one? You can’t – only time and experience will tell.
Larger estate agents tend to provide more training to their staff, however a multitude of branches, and therefore people, can be a challenge to maintaining their standards across the board.
Although our role is to search 100% of the property market on behalf of our clients, and therefore to work with any estate agent, we certainly have our favourites, who we enjoy working with – top secret!
