With renting a popular option for many, rents in the UK - and the South East in particular - remain strong. However, one of the UK’s largest independent letting specialists is warning landlords to be realistic when setting the rent for their property.

Signing up with an agent just because they value their property at a high rent could mean landlords finding themselves with unrented property for long periods.

Leaders’ managing director, Paul Weller said: "Whilst the agent’s role is to ensure the best possible rent is obtained for the property, it is essential to be realistic when setting the rent so that a let is achieved quickly and the asking price is not too high for the current market."

"Landlords should take the advice of an independent letting agent who has longstanding experience of the local market, and not rely on a rental valuation from the agent who is selling them the property, as this is when we most commonly see unrealistic valuations."

Leaders warn that if landlords ask for an unrealistically high rent, they could find themselves with an empty property for a number of weeks or months, which would lose them more rental income over the year than they would lose by simply dropping the rent by £25 or £50 per month.

To make this clearer for landlords, Leaders have produced the table below showing how much loss a rent reduction may represent and translating this loss into the equivalent number of weeks of lost rent if the property were to remain empty.

According to Leaders, tenants are willing to pay good rents for the right properties: those that are presented well, with good quality décor, fixtures and fittings, and in good locations.

However, in certain markets the best rent achievable can sometimes be lower than a landlord might have hoped for, and it may become necessary to accept a slightly lower rent, which landlords are often, understandably, reluctant to do. But Leaders’ say that in their experience, the loss in rent through a small rent reduction is often minimal when compared with how much would be lost as a result of the property remaining empty for a few weeks. Therefore reducing the rent is sometimes the best course of action to minimise losses.