It’s been another hectic week for the industry with lettings agent fees at the forefront.

First: Lettings agent fees

Letting agent fees were in the spotlight this week as MPs debated caps and the advertising watchdog separately reprimanded Hamptons.

Conservative MP for Lewes Maria Caulfield called for the fees to be capped during a House of Commons debate, describing them as “arbrritary and exploitative.”

Hunters’ founder turned MP Kevin Hollinrake told MPs there is an argument for fee caps.

He said: “There is clearly not a free market for tenants, who follow property rather than choose between letting agents because of fees, so it is an issue that we need to address.

“However, letting agents rely on these fees for income, and so that income would have to come from somewhere else; it could be added to rent or else come from higher fees for landlords.

“Agents may also choose to take the most secure tenants and prefer those with good credit histories, rather than take a risk on a tenant with an inferior credit history, because of the risk of having to do the work twice, which would add to their costs.

“There is a potential issue there, so should we consider a cap rather than abolition?”

EYE reader Andy Halstead commented: “A ban of fees would have a very negative effect on the whole market and this includes tenants. Equally, the small number of agents who apparently charge excessive fees are discrediting thousands of hard working professional letting agents.”

Second: 35

That is the extraordinary number of pictures used to market a one-bedroom property in Old Portsmouth on Rightmove.

At least three images are of a tap!

For £750 a month tenants can live among what appears to be a lot of white walls and laminate flooring.

Third: How much should negotiators get paid?

On the Arena forum an old debate has been re-opened after new EYE reader Macadam pondered wage levels.

He said: “I find it difficult to see how negs in this industry survive on the wages they earn. Sure in bigger towns (London especially) there are some decent wages being paid (5 years ago, in a not brilliant market, one of my negs had a six figure salary) but I sit here now in the suburbs and the negs around me are earning perhaps 25-35k. At the risk of showing my age, that is a salary I was on back in the late 1980s and I just don’t see how they will ever buy a home of their own.”