Delegating the management of the property you bought to rent: is it a good idea?

For the accommodation to be rented quickly, with a reliable tenant, it is possible to find the tenant yourself and then take care of the administrative part such as establishing receipts or recovering rental charges.

One in two landlords chooses to take care of housing alone, according to Fnaim. “But you have to bear in mind that this requires being very available to sort through the files of candidates, to make visits, especially when it comes to a studio, where the tenant changes often. And you have to keep abreast of regulatory changes, which are numerous”warns Thomas Reynaud, founder of Garantme, an unpaid rent insurance taken out by tenants.

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If the lessor is not available, in particular because he does not live on site, it is possible to entrust this work to a real estate agency. For the research and selection of the tenant, the visits and the drafting of the lease, it is necessary to count one month’s rent. The tenant contributes to these costs up to 12 euros/m² in very tense areas (Paris and neighboring towns), 10 euros/m² in tense area and 8 euros/m² in the rest of the territory. For a 40 square meter dwelling rented for 1,000 euros per month in the Paris region, the tenant thus pays a maximum of 480 euros and 520 euros remain payable by the lessor.

Additional costs

Once the tenant has been found, it is possible to entrust the entire rental management to the agency: in this case, it is necessary to count between 7% and 10% of the annual rent. For the accommodation of 40 square meters rented 1,000 euros per month, the owner will therefore have to pay the agency between 840 and 1,200 euros each year, which is not negligible. “And, depending on the agencies, additional costs may be added such as tax declarations or the constitution of files for claims in particular”adds Mathieu Chantalat, founder of Smartloc, an online rental management platform.

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If you want to go through an agency, you must therefore compare the contracts, check that an unpaid rent guarantee is included in the formula, which avoids taking out one yourself: one of the advantages of delegating rental management.