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Cardiff Property Letting Agents
One of the primary decisions that any landlord has to make when renting a property out in Cardiff is to use a letting agent, or to arrange everything privately. This decision will inevitably come down to you, as a landlord, and will depend on your previous experience of letting out property, the time you have to manage the property, where you live in relation to the property in Cardiff, and your willingness to keep up to date with new property and tenancy legislation.
If you are a landlord, whom is new to letting out property in Cardiff, then we strongly recommend that you use a Cardiff Property Letting Agent. In an ideal world, where everything runs smoothly, you may get away with very little knowledge, and poor management of the tenancy. However, unfortunately, letting of property does not always run as smoothly as most landlords in Cardiff hope they would.
If you are going to manage a property in Cardiff yourself, then you need to consider if you are going to let and manage the property yourself, or just manage the property yourself.
If you are going to advertise the property yourself without the use of a Cardiff Property Letting Agent, then you will need to consider the following points.
- Where are you going to advertise the property? Can you effectively let the property without any exposure on the major property portals?
- If your property is in a high visibility location, how will people walking past know that the property is available for rental?
- How are you going to carry out viewings? Are you going to be free during the day, and in the evening?
- How are prospective tenants going to find the property on the internet? If prospective tenants search on Google are they going to be able to find you?
- Are prospective tenants able to walk into an office, and enquire about properties in the local area of Cardiff?
- Do you have a tenancy agreement that meets the necessary standards, and could hold up in court if necessary?
- Do you know the laws governing deposit protection, and the fines you risk if these laws aren’t strictly adhered to?
- Do you understand your legal requirements relating to safety certificates recently including Energy Performance Certificates?
If you are able to answer yes to the above questions, or be confident that you can advertise the property through other mediums, then you may be in the position where you can successfully advertise and let your property privately. This is an uncommon situation for most Cardiff landlords to be in, as more often than not they have other commitments.
Whilst property letting agents in Cardiff do charge a fee for successful letting of your property, if your property is sat vacant for three weeks then it would have been more cost effective to have a Cardiff Letting Agent arrange the marketing and letting of your property in Cardiff, not to mention much less hassle.
As a landlord you will also have to decide who is going to manage your property in Cardiff. Management of Cardiff properties can be time consuming, and if you choose to manage the property yourself then you will need to ensure that you have enough free time to ensure that the management of the property runs smoothly.
If you are going to manage the property in Cardiff yourself, then you will need to consider the following points:
- How will you receive rent? How will you check that it has been received, and how quickly will you realise if it hasn’t been received? How you will chase any late rent and what can you legally do to enforce the payment of the rent?
- How will you deal with any maintenance issues? Do you have reliable contractors which you can call up at short notice?
- How often will you carry out periodic inspections? Do you know how often you legally have to carry out these inspections in the case of a licensable HMO and the penalties that will apply from Cardiff County Council.
- How will you keep track of the renewal of any safety certificates such as gas safety certificates, electrical installation certificates, Portable Appliance Testing (PAT), and HMO licences?
- How will you ensure the return of your property at the end of the tenancy? Did you know that you are not automatically entitled to the return of your property at the end of the tenancy and that you have to serve a section 21 notice, and that there are two types of Section 21 notices?
This is just a small overview of the technical and legal knowledge that it is imperative to possess if you are going to manage a tenancy as a private landlord. Whilst it is true that many landlords do not possess this knowledge, and do manage properties in Cardiff privately, if things do not run as planned the results can be hugely expensive and time consuming.
CPS Homes, Cardiff Letting and Estate Agent are able to take away the stress and complexities of letting and managing property in Cardiff from you, giving you as much or as little involvement as you wish. You may be an experienced builder, or have a brother who is a plumber, in which case we will always manage the tenancy as you wish.
Because we specialise in lettings and student accommodation in Cardiff and have always carried out lettings solely in Cardiff since our launch over nine years ago, we have excellent systems in place to ensure that tenancies do run smoothly, minimising the chance of any problems escalating.
Our exposure in Cardiff is unrivalled, through many different mediums. We use traditional methods such as property portals, property lists and brochures, window cards in all of our four offices across Cardiff, leaflet drops and lettings boards. We also pride ourselves on using more innovative measures to increase exposure of your property with methods such as sponsorship of local teams & events, radio advertising and cinema advertising.
Traffic on to our website is huge. This is partly due to our excellent rankings on Google for a plethora of specific search terms and massive presence throughout Cardiff.
We have invested in excellent systems which assist us in the day to day running of your property, and also in finding new tenants for your property in Cardiff. With a large number of staff, and four branches across Cardiff, it really means that CPS Homes can spend the time to effectively let and manage your property in Cardiff.
To discuss our services in more detail, please speak to one of our Cardiff Property Letting Agent offices:
Head office: 029 20 454 555
Cathays: 029 20 668 585
Cardiff Bay: 029 20 480 490
Pontcanna: 029 20 225 511