Lettings agents are frightfully grand these days. Perhaps we're paying them too much. I've been invited to some sumptuous summer parties in London, at venues such as the Cavalry and Guards Club, in Piccadilly, or the Mandarin Oriental, in Knightsbridge. Meanwhile, Britain's smoothest lettings agent, Ed Phillips of Foxtons, recently got married in an improbably grand ceremony at which the guests were treated to a selection of press cuttings charting his meteoric career.
It is clear they are getting too much attention. But what do they think of us landlords? It's been a while since I encouraged my friends in the loud suits to speak candidly about the people who pay their bills. So, in the interests of mutual understanding, camaraderie and a never-ending stream of assured shorthold tenancy agreements, I present you with a list of landlord home truths.
"Landlords are utterly shortsighted," says Frank Harris, of the eponymous City agency. "They won't spend money on minor repairs. I share my office with the fellow who does all of our management on hundreds of flats. In flats that may be renting for £2,000 a month, landlords will query replacing a washing machine, even if it's on its last legs, and even though a new one would set them back only £300. They are basic things, but landlords won't spend the money. It's a constant irritant.
"I'm sure we have lost tenants over it, but landlords cannot see the point. I have to listen to them arguing about spending money day in, day out, and I cannot tell you how annoying it is."
Things don't appear to be any better in west London. "What I would like to say to landlords is this: if an agent is advising you to do something, pay attention," says an exasperated Tamara Hunt, head of lettings at Lane Fox. "We aren't doing it for the good of our health. We are doing it to secure a good tenant at the best possible price for you."
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Hunt's biggest bugbear? The dinner-party anecdote. "Property is such a dinner-table topic," she explains. "People hear stories about how easy it is to get hundreds of pounds in rent, and immediately they think we can do the same for their tiny basement flat filled with old, borrowed furniture. I think that because the sales market is so buoyant, landlords expect to recoup great profits in letting. Well, you can get optimum rents, but only if you invest in your property."
Okay, so we are mean and greedy. As well as prone to raking over dinner-party chat in preference to actual evidence. Anything else? Yes. We can be condescending, too, according to Marc von Grundherr, my friend at Benham & Reeves Residential Lettings. "Landlords treat us lettings agents like servants. Seventy per cent of them do, anyway," he moans. "It's as if we are here purely to do their bidding, and if you say something that doesn't fall in line with what they are thinking, it's irrelevant.
"One of the rudest things that I often get - and which I can't stand - is when landlords ring me up and say, 'Hello, Marc, it's Mr Smith.' They don't know me from Adam, yet they feel they can call me by my first name while continuing to use their surname. I just think it is appalling."
The other thing that makes von Grundherr growl is that we are often unrealistic. "Landlords' expectations do not fall in line with what is achievable," he says. "I went to see a flat the other day in central London. It had a great view over Regent's Park. However, that was about it. It wasn't dressed. It wasn't done up. The landlord wanted £5,000 a week for it, even though we both knew the flat next door, which is bigger, but without the view, rents out for £3,500. He thought his flat was worth 50% more.
"We left it there. I couldn't do business with him. Oh, he'll come back in three months' time, when he has failed to rent it out. Then he'll ask me to let it for something realistic."
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Outside London, the relationship between landlord and agent seems to be a bit less inflammatory. "Our clients aren't rude," says Alan Bevan, director of City Residential in Liverpool and Manchester. "They certainly don't insist on being called Mr and Mrs while using our first names.
"I'd say the main problem comes down to naivety: thinking they can get £650 a month for a flat that is worth only £600, and insisting on holding out through a 10-week void period until that figure is met. Of course, that costs them money."
Clarity, says Bevan, is the key. Tell landlords what they are going to get, then deliver it for them. And while you're at it, don't leave them in any doubt that they - and not the agents - are the ones who must sit around and wait for the white goods to turn up.
"You need to be clear about what you will or will not do for them," he says. "Some new landlords expect us to skivvy around. Meeting washing-machine deliveries from Currys, for example. They will expect us to sit outside an apartment for seven hours for the arrival of a fridge."
So, dear landlord, be realistic, be ready to shell out for repairs, deal with deliveries yourself and, above all, don't come over all formal when hailing your poor lettings agent by his first name. All right?