Foxtons

After a DISASTROUS renting experience with Marsh and Parsons (
) we approached this Foxtons office location as a last resort. I was already working with 4 other Foxtons offices to look at flats in various neighborhoods. Because we were pressured and stuck into a most unsavory letting experience prior, I came into dealing with Foxtons like a rapid bulldog-​not gonna take anyone’s shit attitude. I heard that if a property was managed by Foxtons, it is awful. So, I made it crystal clear to all agents that if a property was managed privately, as ours had been before, and I’d haunt their dreams and make their lives a living hell if the landlord was as big of an asshole as the one we had before. All agents sympathetically heard our nightmare story but Andrew at this location seemed to display more sympathy/​willingness to find a better fit than the others.
The good about Foxtons in general: A) The website is slick, easy to use and nice. But the desirable properties online have typically already had an offer made to them by the time they are on the site. :(B) The water. Just get a damn water bottle every time you go. I’m partial to Perrier and was known to drink up to 2 – 3 each meeting. I love sparkling water, why not? C) The selection. More flats than most other agencies. 70% were misses, but 30% are true viable options, which is a great percentage when you consider that no flat will have everything you want… Unless you are filthy, fucking rich!
The bad: A) As soon as we signed onto the Tenancy Agreement, Andrew, our agent ceased to return my calls/​emails. The thing is that they don’t tell you that if you have questions after signing the paperwork — but before you move in — is that you need to speak to the Tenancy Relations dept. But that information is not given and is not clear, until you rant at the lettings manager or poor front desk person enough that someone will redirect you. B) It is EXPENSIVE. The fee is high, which is why I tried to take as many Perriers per visit, LOL. C) They are KIDS trying to run a show. Think early 20s-​ish. Two agents, from other offices, tried to cancel on me last minute and I just bullied my way back into meeting with someone. That is unprofesh, but we still made it work. Especially since my husband took the day off to search with me, time was money! But customer service is much less recognized here than in the US, so maybe the approach is classic British? Not sure.
But, at the end of the day, Andrew did set us up in a flat that was nice and has a great landlord to boot. What a nice change. Foxtons isn’t perfect. Your housing experience will depend more on the caliber of your landlord, but luckily, we found a great fit at the end of the day.

This a general review for Foxtons but since I dealt with agents in Camden area the most I’ll leave the review with this branch.
I was hunting for short let in London like a desperate person for the past few months, and Foxtons is the agent I dealt with the most, even though I didn’t end up renting with them.
I have very mixed feeling with Foxtons due to the following aspects:
1. Amazing website: 5! It really puts other real estate agencies’ websites to shame. It’s not only functional, but pleasant to look at. It has all the common filtering, and for each listing, you can see detailed description, photos, floor plans with measurement, neighborhood, street view, and commute map. You can also set alerts for the type of properties you are interested in and they’ll send you email when a listing appears that fits your requirement. Very handy.
2. Service: 3. Very mixed feelings. First of all they are very responsive. When I fill in a contact form online I alway receive an email from someone within a few hours directing me to the agent that manages the property for further questions. The business hour is great (8am — 8pm, in London!), and they work on Saturdays too.
As for the agents, I have different experience with different agents. The agent from Camden town was very pleasant to deal with, answers all my questions very quickly, and was being very helpful. An agent from Notting Hill on the other hand, was very pushy and doesn’t give me enough details in her answers. After finding out the property I was interested in had no internet and I told her internet is a necessary requirement, she stopped responding. But after a while she started making cold calls which is often during 3 – 4 am in my local time given the time difference, and left aggressive email messages like «please call me back as soon as possible». Another agent from Shepherds Bush was pretty helpful, but again when I asked about Internet she kept insisting that a wireless dongle will work the same (which will not) instead of providing more listings with internet option.
In general I find all of them very responsive, but also very aggressive. All of the agents who had properties available kept on pressuring me about how impossible it is to get housing in September, and makes they property they are trying to let sound like the last property on earth. It is harder to get housing in September (due to the students returning to campus), but still not impossible. On the other hand, if an agent who doesn’t have any property on hand, I’d be told to come back and ask at a time closer to move-​in date because landlords prefer guests who can move in immediately (which makes sense too). I was very confused.
3. Price: 1. Granted that shortlet is very expensive in London, but it’s extremely expensive with Foxtons. With most agents, you pay a holding deposit first and then pay the full rent for the period you are staying (in case of shortlet) before moving in. Foxtons insisted on paying the deposit and the full amount at reservation time, along with the 350 pounds of agent fee. For a 3 month let that’s a LOT of money. I decided to give up the listing because it’s too much money, and then a week later the agent told me that after asking the manager it’s OK to pay rent later before moving in. Also, since they are a big corporate a lot of their policies are very inflexible. All shortlet has the same weekly price regardless of how long your stay is, while other agents offers more favorable prices for shortlet longer than 3 months. When they gave me the contract I did a search and found out I could just book it directly for almost 35% cheaper and without all the admin fee!
4. Properties: 3.5. They do seem to have better quality properties than other agents in general. However, sometimes their photos could be deceiving. It happens that one of the properties I looked at was also listed on another website, which looked a lot smaller and shabbier than Foxtons photos. Also, since they claim that they’ll have everything ready for shortlet flats, it doesn’t make sense that a lot of properties don’t have internet, especially given that no internet provider in the UK will install internet for a contract less than 9 months.
Therefore 3 stars for the shortlet experience.
I’d recommend people to use Zoopla to find housing resources, then contact different agents for better comparison.

We rented a short let for 3 months.
The renting process was smooth and the paperwork and payment is handled through the website. Since it was a short let the rent for the whole period plus 4 weeks of deposit has to be made before we could move in.
When we got to the apartment it was like moving in to someones home There were no empty closets and the owners stuff were everywhere. Good thing we brought our own towels and linens since we couldn’t find anything clean (or it might have been clean but thrown into the closet with dirty cloths and whatnot). The pillows were discoloured and stinking so we had to purchase our own. Also we couldn’t get the grease and make up off the towels so we need to buy or own of those too.
In the kitchen dirty kitchenware were mixed with somewhat clean in the cupboards and old food was left in the freezer and on the counters. Also mixed in were tools, spare parts for plumbing, spackling paste etc.
It took us a weekend to clean the apartment and get things organised.
We thought it must have been some kind of mistake and that Foxton by no way could have inspected the property before we moved in, but our agent confirmed that she herself had inspected the flat before we moved in and that everything was in order.
So now we know what Foxton mean by «Bring your suitcase and we’ll provide the rest.»