Thanks for your comments. We've already helped tenants and landlords save tens of thousands of pounds, now we're just looking to scale up and help even more!
Someone should enter the market with a product like this in the Randstad in the Netherlands, focussing on Amsterdam and The Hague.
The number of new foreigners who aren't able to access the subsidized rental market every year is in the tens of thousands, and the letting agents here charge ridiculous amounts for no apparent service to owners or tenants.
Something like this would have helped me tremendously, when I came to Hamburg, Germany nearly 4 years ago. I really love the idea and hope, that this will spread.
how do you keep agents out? what if the register as owners? agent-fees are a pain - not only in the UK. So hope someday you will make the internationalization-jump.
We have a few systems in place to stop agents, and have had to make the decision to delist many properties based on this.
I don't want to elaborate too much and help agents circumvent our systems, but essentially there isn't too much motivation for agents to list.
We advertise as having no agent fees, and as such, it breaks the agents model of charging fees. This disincentivises most agents. Furthermore, tenants don't want to pay fees when they find out they don't have to...
For a "tenant find" service, agents normally charge landlords between 5% and 15% of the annual rent. They will then add on charges for deposit handling, contract drafting, referencing, etc... All fixed charges at the £30-£150 mark each.
To tenants, agents will charge similar fees, normally in the region of hundreds of pounds. This will cover referencing and general "admin".
It is these fees we are combating against - and will hopefully be able to eradicate.
Agents will also offer a "fully managed service" for between 5% and 15% of the rent per month, but that is not something we're tackling at the moment...
Thanks for your elaborate answers. here in Germany the fees are sometimes in the range of 1 - 2 monthly rates. The last one is the maximum allowed value by law. But, as you have to pay a damage deposit to your new landlord as well, this might add up in cost around 5 monthly rents. OK, if everything goes well, the damage deposit returns to your valet, once you move again, but that is a lot of money to have at hand upfront.
So a service like this will help a lot of people - as said before.
