In our second installment of comparing property manager fees, we focus on Manchester.
Manchester is a vibrant city, 2 massive football clubs in United and City attract attention from across the world.
Business is booming. Barclays, Co-operative bank & Bank of New York Mellon have large offices based in Manchester. Jobs equal people and people need property.
Museums, a bustling nightlife, art galleries & a host of top notch restaurants attract people to live in the city.
Adding to the city’s population are an abundance of students. Across the 5 Greater Manchester Universities, there are 100,000 students in the city.
Rent increases in Manchester
Manchester has seen significant rent increases in recent times, over the last 20 years rent has quadrupled.
Furthermore, there are pressures for councils to implement rent capping in certain zones.
Landlords in Manchester
With an increasing population and properties in demand, landlords will have no problems attracting tenants.
However with property prices also increasing, purchase prices and mortgages will put pressure on rental profits.
To safeguard profits, landlords need to reduce rental costs where possible.
This is particularly the case when selecting a property manager to look after rental properties
Many landlords opt for a property manager, especially when the landlord has multiple properties. More properties result in a lot more management time.
Property manages offer a range of services, the most basic is finding tenants, with more dedicated services such as fully managing the property; taking care of maintenance, collecting rent, inventories & legal documentation.
Average property manager fees
Average property management fees in Manchester of course vary between property managers.
Taking a look on Rent Round, a property manager fee comparison site, you can quickly see the best agents in your area & what fees are charges.
Focusing on finding tenants only in the centre of Manchester, there are some extremely attractive prices on offer.
Firstly, starting with nationwide online agent LettingAProperty.com, you can choose their tenant finding services for less than £200. This price is a one off price as opposed to monthly, making it even more attractive.
Obviously with the company being an online agent, landlords may have to undertake certain duties themselves, mainly conducting viewings.
If you’re interested in such services, you may want to look into how to conduct viewings yourself to increase the chances of the tenant wanting to move in.
Alternatively, you then have franchises Accommodation.co.uk & Open House, both charging between £200-£400 for their services.
Slightly further out of the centre of Manchester, you have Ellenbrook Estates, Clear Choice Properties & Enviro Estates also offering competitive tenant only find fees.
On the expensive side, going with a larger agent such as Haart, can see landlords stump up a whole months rent to cover their tenant find fees.
| LettingaProperty.com | £100-£200 |
| Manchester Accommodation.co.uk | £200-400 |
| Open House South West Manchester | £200-400 |
| Ellenbrook Estates | 6-10% pcm |
| Clear Choice Properties | £100-£200 |
Property manager fees in Manchester on average
Average rent in Manchester is £818 per calendar month.
So based on going with LettingAProperty.com or Accomodation.co.uk/Open House, you’ll be paying on average 24% or 48% of your first month’s rent (respectively) in property manager fees.
Going with Haart, it would of course be 100% of the first month’s rent. However it would actually be 120% of your first month’s rent when you factor in VAT (cheeky).
Average fully managed fees
As alluded to previously, some landlords may require wider services from property managers, whether they haven’t got the time, have multiple properties or would just rather be doing something different.
Under these circumstances, landlords could opt to pay a larger segment of their rental income to a property manager to alleviate some of the effort.
Using the same example agents above, we can take a look at the average property management fees in Manchester for fully managed services.
| LettingaProperty.com | £81-100 pcm |
| Manchester Accommodation.co.uk | 6-10% pcm |
| Open House South West Manchester | 6-10% pcm |
| Ellenbrook Estates | 6-10% pcm |
| Clear Choice Properties | 6-10% pcm |
What does our stunning analysis indicate? That generally, you should be paying between 6-10% on average if you’re looking for a property manager to fully manage your property in Manchester.
This equates to an average charge of £81.80 paid by landlords, on average for fully managed services.
Landlords need to bear in mind, that each property manager will have different detailed costs. For example, replacing keys, fixing doors, updating tenancy agreements etc. So when selecting your property manager, we recommend some additional analysis
