29 September 2026 · 6 min read · Oscar Markham
Letting agents are worth more than any advert
Most plumbers get their landlord work by accident. Somebody rings, it goes well, and a trickle follows. Nobody sets out to win letting agents, which is strange, because a single agent managing sixty properties is a more valuable relationship than any advertising campaign a small plumbing business will ever run.
Why it is better work than it looks
Scheduled servicing rather than emergencies. Repeat volume from one relationship. Invoices to a business rather than chasing householders. And it continues through the quiet months.
It is also durable. Changing plumber across a managed portfolio is a hassle an agent will avoid, so a relationship that works tends to last years.
What an agent actually needs
Answering the phone, turning up when you said, and paperwork that arrives without being chased. That is most of it.
The tenant is the agent's problem and you are the person who makes it go away. A plumber who communicates clearly about timing removes more stress than one who is slightly cheaper, and agents will say so openly.
The paperwork is the differentiator
Certificates, service records, dated reports, clear invoices. Agents are managing compliance for somebody else's property and the documentation is not optional for them.
Being reliably good at that is genuinely rare in the trade and it is the thing that gets you recommended internally to the other property managers in the office.
How to actually approach them
Individually. Find the property management person rather than the sales side of the agency — they are different people with different problems.
A short, specific introduction beats a brochure: what you do, where you cover, that you provide certificates and dated reports, and your hours. Then follow up once. Most plumbers never make the approach at all, so the field is thin.
The moment they are most receptive is when their existing plumber has just let them down, which you cannot predict — which is the argument for being in front of them more than once.
Price it as a relationship, not a job
Volume justifies a rate you would not give a one-off householder, and trying to charge agent work at domestic emergency rates is how these relationships end.
The maths only works if you count the year rather than the callout, which is the same calculation that makes service plans worth having.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.