This week, in our property blog, Clare Hall prepares to defend the much despised letting agent that can be encountered in every town up and down the country and explains why what they do is actually vital for the property sector:

As a novice investor I was the first to accuse Letting Agents of being nothing more than modern day pirates. So I am the first to understand when I hear other Landlords views on letting agents. On the whole they feel this way either because they get a poor level of customer service or they are paying eye watering fees for little in return, so I thought I would try to break it down to explain exactly (you may disagree) what a letting agent or agency does to gain your hard earned fee.

This is not an attempt at selling you something, just an insight into the barebones of the business, an attempt to give you an idea that we don't all just sit around eating digestives and drinking coffee whilst moaning about your tenants!!!..

Here at Harding and Hall, we go to great lengths to build our databases of tenants and landlords so that we can match the right people to the right properties. This is crucial if you want to have tenants staying at your property for longer than the national average let of just over 12 months.

But before we can do any of that we first must have you the Landlord and Tenant calling us up in order to access our database. This may be through a personal recommendation or you may have come across some of our online advertising, or letting board. One way or the other it would have been the result of an endless marketing campaign. As you can imagine keeping an agency in the public eye and visible at all times is a big job in itself. It is essential to have a high profile in order to attract the best Landlords and Tenants and needless to say more important when you need to let your property or you need to find a new home.

Generally the tenants on our database have contacted us as they will have seen our Landlords property specifically advertised (not forgetting that this takes a few hours to arrange) or they might be looking for something near the area of your property.

We have to be double agents and play the market on both sides of the business to ensure that both Tenant and Landlord are receiving the best possible service in order to have a smooth operating AST in place. I can here you say "that just about justifies half of the fees charged", and you would be about right. This could cover marketing and some business overheads, as well as office rent, salaries and fuel.

To cover the additional overheads and to stay in business, the Letting Agent must seek to make some money from the services provided. Which it does by charging fees to both Landlord and Tenant, in some instances the agent may have a commission fee for insurance products.

Now we are getting somewhere close to covering the costs for the skill in matching the Tenant and property, the negotiation techniques, the credit checks and all sorts of other bits that I can't even think about.

Consider each property is unique in one way or another. It has its own features to point out and we sometimes have to go the extra mile and wash dishes, pick up doggy deposits or rubbish outside the property, and I have even made beds!

It's easy to understand why any Landlord looking for the easy investment considers the Letting Agent his best asset. It's not as easy as it sounds and I know we work very hard for our money, honest!

Visit Us: http://www.hardingandhall.co.uk