After the oddity of our last house, my housemates and I wanted something entirely new - fresh,…read moreclean and most importantly young professional. We were now completely fed up with student style homes, with awful student style landlords and the poor service they offered. Enter: Park Crest Properties. As soon as we saw the website we felt we'd found a hidden gem, an exciting new mid-way between student life and young professional life. The website was easy to use, simple but classy and offered a great selection of houses and flats. Perfect. After choosing the one we desired (complete with little garden and 'cloud burst' shower head, oh yes!) we called to arrange an appointment. Our landlord-to-be (who is also also the estate agent) could not have been more efficient. He was punctual, informative and honest. After the viewing we signed up almost immediately - although it was a lot smaller than our previous home, it was lovely. It was the eye for detail (as it says on their website) that really made the difference, most especially in the bathroom - it was like some kind of luxury spa and extremely well looked after. Of course, you don't have a rented house without complaint, but anything we took issue with, our landlord was prompt in both communicating with us and acting on our problems. And once we had all decided to go our separate ways sorting out the bonds was, to my great relief, totally fine. We couldn't get them back until we sent proof that we had paid our final utilities, which I think is more than fair, and within the week of doing so we received our cheques with only a small deduction for some minor things. The entire experience was both professional and personal, and this is a lovely, understanding and efficient estate agents. I highly recommend!

Regular readers of my reviews will realise that over the last few years I have had quite a few…read moremoves in a short space of time. What this means is that I have visited practically every estate agent in Leeds. On the occasion that I visited this one I was on a very tight schedule to find somewhere to live and probably came across as quite panicked and desperate. Lucky for me then that the guy in the office was brilliant and calming. At the time they didn't have any properties that were suitable, only because I had to move in three weeks and they didn't have any available that soon. Rather than just tell me to try somewhere else bless him the guy spent nearly an hour with me going through my options. Not only did he tell me where else to try but suggested a couple of places and pointed me in the right direction. He was also lovely in that he told me about a couple of areas in Leeds that I hadn't considered. Although somewhere to live was the main goal of my journey and that wasn't satisfied, he did give me lots of advice that was really valuable. http://beautytruthsnotuglylies.blogspot.com/

I love Manning Stainton, me. I am in the process of buying a house and these guys have been the…read moremost professional, helpful and given me the least hassle even though estate agents are selling less than one property a week or something (?). The Headingley office is easy to spot, and the staff are very friendly. Always someone on hand to offer advice and help, and one of the ladies in here was telling me about the area I was looking in as she lives there too, so there was a nice personal touch too. Excellent estate agency.

Nicola and Amy at manning Stainton Headingly Leeds were amazing helping us sell my mum's house…read more They went above and beyond the call of duty. When the buyer was being difficult Nicola mediated to overcome all obstacles for us. When we needed the house cleared she organised a charity and company to take care of it, because we live far away. My family is so grateful for their kind and professional service during a difficult time after loosing my mum. They are a fantastic team that will work so hard for you and are friendly and extremely knowledgeable. I highly recommend them.

Unfortunately, nothing but negative service throughout my 18 month rental property…read more When I moved in I reported a broken window and provided photos, which was further reported at my 6 months and 1 year inspection. Not once was there any attempt to fix it or rectify the situation, i moved out with it still broken. I also did not have a carbon monoxide detector for the first 8 or so months in the property. The condition of the property was far beyond clean when I moved in, e.g. stains on the carpet which I had to remove, dust on skirting boards and stairs etc. This was not a huge issue until I moved out and was expected to leave the place entirely spotless, which I did, bleached skirting boards and all. Upon return of my keys I visited the Wakefield office to hand them back. I walked in to be briefly acknowledged by nearly 15 members of staff looking up from their desk and promptly returning to their work. I had to actually ask someone to help me as I was blatantly ignored. Quite frankly the worst estate agents I have ever dealt with and I am glad to see the back of them.

From the owner: Welcome to Richard Kendall Estate Agent - Moving home is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make…read morein life, so make sure you’re using a local, reputable estate agent that will help you through it from start to finish.

AVOID AVOID AVOID…read more this has to be the worst agency in the UK. Unprofessional and lack even basic knowledge. They have serious attitude problems when answering the phone if they even bother to answer.

Estate agents consistently rank highly in lists of most hated professions, often trumped only by…read moreparking wardens and bureaucrats. From my dealings with this Derby based agency, it is very easy to see why they have such a bad reputation. Agents are supposed to take away the hassle of letting a property - in my experience, they created all the hassle. If I had to sum up my experience with this company in a sentence, it would be: DO NOT USE THIS AGENCY. But allow me to explain. I have been letting two properties with this company for just over a year. Here are a few issues that I have faced, although let it be known that these are a few of the problems amongst the whole page full I have had with this company. - Property 1: After having taken fees (in the hundreds) from both myself (landlord) for check-in and rent-guarantee, and from the tenant for check-in, background checks, credit checks etc. When the tenant disappeared some way through the six month, I was left four months rent out of pocket. Despite having taken rent-guarantee which apparently would have protected me from this, I was unable to receive any rent as the managing director of the company Taj, was on holiday and because he is the sole person with access to the bank accounts and funds, nobody else is this company is able to help resolve this. After having to physically chase Taj every day with emails and phonecalls, I was finally told that I could not claim on the rent-guarantee because of an administrative error that was made by his staff when completing the initial applications. After some further digging, I found out that the company had never performed any credit or background checks on the tenant and therefore this meant the guarantee was void. To date, I have not received a single penny for those four months from this company and no refund of the money I paid for the rent guarantee. I was told by Taj, "Michael, if you were in my shoes, what would you have me do? I cannot find this person and therefore you cannot receive the money". His comment might have been more appropriate if the company hadn't sold me rent-guarantee, although a comment like that shows the infancy of this company and how little experience they actually have at managing properties. - Property 2: I went to do a little gardening at another property I was letting with this agency, as I do every few months to keep them seasonally tidy. I bumped into the tenant who was currently on month eleven in the property. They queried why I had decided to put the rent up on the property by £100 since month seven. I said that I wasn't aware of an increase in the rent and asked for some further information from them to verify the amount they had been paying. The tenant showed me their bank statements which showed their payments to the agency had indeed increased by £100. I had not been receiving any increase in rent from the agency so I took this up with Streets Ahead. Obviously none other than Taj could answer my questions because, despite having numerous staff at the company, the only person who knows vaguely what is going on in this company is the MD. He first tried to tell me he had emailed me to say that we could put the property back on the market at a higher rate, but after searching his emails he realised he hadn't sent this (also this doesn't answer my question?) and then repeatedly said "isn't it better that we are making more money" but he hadn't quite grasped that he had first lied to both myself and the tenant by increasing the rent and not telling me, thinking he could get away with this and pocket the £100 extra each month for himself (on top of the company's extortionate management fee). If you are thinking of using this company, please don't. It is easier letting all by yourself (privately), you can download a free model tenancy agreement on the gov.uk website and you can advertise the property on a number of different websites like rightmove or openrent which is what I have done and I can honestly say I have never looked back.