How worried are you by the letting fees ban? Very, say 42% of agents

Nearly 42% of all agents in the UK believe the looming letting fees ban will be the biggest challenge to their business this year, it has been revealed. The next most important challenges are a lack of new landlords followed by online competitors, the research among 400 agents who between them manage 90,000 properties found. Fixflo’s annual report into the property management and lettings sector, its fourth so far, also looks at how agents are performing. This includes how it takes agents 71 minutes on average to respond to a repair request, an improvement on last year’s 94 minutes. And a fifth of agents take over three hours to respond while 12% of agents take less than half an hour, but it’s the way agents manage property repairs that has changed the most, the report highlights. Spreadsheets loss Some 65% of agents use software of some description to manage their repairs reporting and management, while the trusty Excel spreadsheet is almost a memory – only 13% of agents now use them. The report also reveals that agents are having to organise more repairs per property each year, up from 3.67 last year to 4.08 this year, while 10% of agents…