This is an easy problem to solve, and others have pointed out what needs to happen. 1. Provide automatic contract and deposit protection flows into the middle

This is an easy problem to solve, and others have pointed out what needs to happen. 1. Provide automatic contract and deposit protection flows into the middle 2. Renters and landlords should both be credit-checked and reviewed by others. If guarantors are necessary, manage that process and credit check them too. 3. Provide check-in/check-out inventories that can be ticked off and checked by all parties. This is 90% of the value letting agents provide. The rest is about better listings themselves: commute times to key locations; what broadband options and speeds are available in that location; the average price and food safety rating of local pubs, cafes, restaurants and takeaways; crime rates; ambulance response times; council tax rates (everybody forgets these and then gets surprised unless they move to LBH&F which has some of the lowest in the country); parking details and costs; night bus routes in the vicinity; voting histories in recent elections; and so on. All of this data is out there, and easy to build tools for and it's the only way to make things better AND get rid of the letting agency model that needs to happen almost urgently. Just providing a veneer over the letting agent? Doomed to fail like so many that have come before it.