You can of course do anything you like, there's absolutely no requirement to use an agency if you don't want to. There's nothing to stop you doing what a property agent does. All you need to do is buy all the newspapers every day and visit all the property websites and go through the listings and compile them into a database then wander the streets in the neighbourhood you're interested looking for windows without curtains and going to the land registry to find who owns the property and call them up to see if they are interested in renting, confirm the specifications and asking prices etc. Then go and look at all the properties to see what condition they are in.
Personally I'd rather pay a fee to have someone do all that for me. Contrary to popular opinion I've always thought that property agents are quite deserving of their fee for the hours they put in.
90% of the work lawyers do is printing out and signing standard forms that could easily be done online but property agents need to actually work for their money..
The last agent I used was definitely worth his fee as he helped us to negotiate the flat price down and also somehow managed to get us to view it first which really helped us but comparatively, the other agents we used for the area ranged from annoying to rubbish!
yeah I should of tied it in better. I was responding to the OP's view that 3 months deposit seems excessive (which I agree).
My point being most things real estate related in HK is regulated by the developers and landlords and not the government who should be ensuring 'fairness' for HK people.
Landlords are only able to ask for 3 months deposit because of 'apparent' lack of supply which might not be the case if development, land sales, etc. is not the way it is here. During the SARS crash I'm pretty sure no one dared to ask for 3 months deposit. Hotels were practically giving away rooms.
Now landlords would probably demand 6 months deposit (or entire leases to be paid up front) if they thought people would pay it IMO.