Pretty impressed...
We got sick of trying to work out the intricacies of becoming landlords by ourselves. Between energy efficiency reports, electricity certificates, deposit holding schemes etc etc etc, and the horror stories we have heard from people taking tenants on word of mouth, we decided to use an agency to find our tenants.
Anyway...it turns out letting agents are MUCH more friendly when they are trying to secure you as a landlord rather than collect your rent!
It isn't as expensive as I thought, either - half the first month's rent as a tenant finding fee, which includes pretty much everything we don't want to do ourselves.
The tricky bit is afterwards...it would actually only cost us about £70 a month to have it all managed for us. It is sooooo tempting...but then again, that is an extra £800 a year.
I think what we will do is just use them to find the tenants, then try to manage it ourselves long-distance for a few months, and if it doesn't work out, go back to them as managers.
I definitely feel a little better about the whole situation now I have seen them though. The rental value of the house each month is only about £50 less than our hefty mortgage, which we can easily cover.
Phew!
I think I ate OK yesterday...I was busy and didn't really count but it was 3 normalish meals and a couple of snacks, only one of which was one of my friend's Devil Cookies of Temptation (more than 300 calories each!), so should be OK!