Some 55 per cent of landlords using letting agencies do now know whether the agents are in any professional body.
Some 37 per cent were aware that their agent was a member of ARLA but if they were members of any other trade bodies, they were little-recognised - only 11 per cent of landlords knew whether their agents were members of RICS and nine per cent knew whether they were in The Property Ombudsman scheme.
Just eight per cent know whether their agent was in NALS and only three per cent knew whether their agent was in Safe Agent Fully Endorsed.
Other bodies - including the two additional ombudsman-type schemes from which letting agents can choose membership from October onwards - did not feature amongst the replies.
The findings came from the Property Academy's latest annual survey, which questioned a large sample of 2,948 landlords across the country.
Two other interesting findings emerged from this year's survey, recently published.
The first was that void periods was by some margin the biggest worry which landlords had about their portfolio - significantly outstripping problems such as arrears or property damage. When there was a void, 10 per cent of landlords expected daily updates from an agent on the hunt for a tenant; an additional 43 per cent expected updates at least two or three times a week.
The second was that only seven per cent of landlords would definitely use an online agent in preference to a high street agent; conversely, no fewer than 56 per cent of landlords would definitely use only a high street agent. However 37 per cent of landlords were not sure.
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Comments
I agree; these bodies make little or no effort to advertise themselves - and we as a company are members of all of them - but are quick to demand that we, the member, advertise their wares while at the same time asking us to pay to use their logos.
In truth I don't think landlords care that much about it anyway; I can spend an hour extolling the virtues of all of them but all the landlord wants to know is how much rent can I get them, how much of it will I keep and when is the tenant going to move in! They don't give a hoot whether we are members of ARLA, TPOS, Sage agent or anyone else
No surprises there. Having wasted 25 years of membership money to both NAEA and ARLA I realised the game was up and left these organisations this year. Over 25 years I have seen them waist yours and my money on snuggling up to MPs who have little or no interest in anything they have to say. Every time there is a policy announcement both ARLA and NAEA are caught with their trousers down as they seen never to be consulted. And the public have no idea who they are and what they do. I could go on about web sites and head offices and jobs for the boys but dont have the time. On the same basis Agents Mutual will also ask on their members to publicises their web site, good luck with that, just ask anyone who is an ALRA member how that works.