Eliminating Void Periods

One of the greatest scourges of a landlord is the rental void. This is where a residential investment property remains empty whilst a landlord still has to pick up the bills for their buy-to-let mortgage and other property maintenance costs.

Where do professional landlords go for their buy-to-let insurance?

Discount Lettings a company specialising in the marketing of residential investment property through the Internet has provided this article on how landlords can potentially eliminate void periods.

Getting tenants in is a landlord’s priority
Tenanting a landlord’s investment property as quickly as possible should be a priority when it comes to the property letting process. A key factor in finding a tenant quickly has a lot to do with the rental research which is required when investing in a buy to let property. If you have purchased a property within an area that has a massive demand for rental property then straight away you are giving yourself a better chance of eliminating costly void periods. In addition, if demand out strips supply then the rental price may increase, so not only are you greatly increasing your chance of eliminating costly void periods, a landlord can achieve a great rental price too.

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This sounds like very basic information but you would be surprised at how many landlords/investors over look these very simple but important factors when starting the property letting process. Landlords will also find that a rental property is more likely to be tenanted quickly if the rental property is situated close to certain places within the community, such as:

• Tube Stations
• Trains Stations
• Main Bus depot/stations
• Hospitals
• High street locations and shopping malls

An investment property positioned close to these facilities, offers a great location for a rental property. Great rental properties are found because of a landlord’s due diligence with regard to rental research carried out prior to the purchasing of a buy to let property. With a little hard work in securing the right rental property a landlord will have no problems in tenanting their investment property very quickly and keeping the property free of void periods.
Before you start renting your property, you will initially need to decide if you would like to go down the DIY route of tenanting your property or the conventional agent route. Here are some questions to ask before making this decision.

• Can you afford a full management service from a property letting agent?
• Can you afford a finders fee payment from a property letting agent?
• Should you concern yourself monitoring rental payments
• Are you too busy to deal with tenants enquiries and concerns?
• Can I afford a full management fee?

Once a landlord has made their decision they can then move on to finding a tenant. If they can afford the costly full management fee which normally comes in at around 10%-15% of your rental price, then a landlord is taking a lot of the work out of the property letting process, but be aware that you are also missing out on a lot of the valuable returns too.

With full management the letting agent should take care of everything to do with the tenancy from start to finish, and then manage the whole property letting process including looking after the deposit, transferring funds to your bank account plus invoices every month, and all maintenance issues (not including maintenance costs). This all sounds ok, but even though you’ve opted for the costly full management service this doesn’t mean that a landlord’s investment property will be tenanted any quicker than if you were to go the DIY route.

Landlords should keep their options open
When using a conventional letting agent landlord do not sign a sole agency agreement which ties them into that agent whilst they are showcasing your buy-to-let property, so it’s a good idea to get four or five keys made for your investment property so that you can instruct four or five agents at the same time, this will greatly increase your chance of finding a tenant quickly and will not cost you a penny more than instructing just the one agent. The pressure is on the agent to find a tenant before the other agents do.

There are many factors that could determine whether you tenant your buy-to-let property quickly. Many of these factors can be put into place without using a conventional letting agent and they include:

• Lowering the price of your rental. Maybe you have over priced your investment property.
• Considering carefully where a landlord’s rental property is being marketed. Is your rental property being shown to enough potential tenants? How can you increase the number of viewings of the property?
• Ensuring a high standard of decor of the investment property. Is the investment property in a good state of repair? Would you feel comfortable living in the property yourself?
• Offering potential tenants an additional service to the property at no extra charge, i.e. Broadband, Evening and weekend calls free of charge. All of these services are very cheap in the market today so for the sake of loosing £30/£40 per quarter this could be a major plus for the tenant and place your property in a much more desirable position in the rental market.
• Accepting a lower deposit amount than other landlords in the surrounding area. This can sway a tenant who is having trouble coming up with a full deposit of six weeks rent and a full month’s rental in one large payment.

The biggest property lettings market of them all – the Internet
Landlords can showcase their rental property to millions of waiting tenants all over the Internet, which is where 85%-90% of people searching for rental property choose to look first. Using a simple marketing service like Discount Letting a landlord can place their rental property in front of millions of waiting tenants by an email mail shot and exposure on web sites such as Rightmove.co.uk, FindaProperty.com, and many more.

With the help of the Discount Letting services a landlord can achieve all the Internet exposure they need for £59 for a 1 month package (and only £35 should you need to renew for a further month). Having received massive Internet exposure for a very small fee you can continue down the DIY route where you can drastically increase a landlord’s rental returns and profits made. By using this process throughout a landlord’s property investment portfolio a landlord can increase their profit, upping the performance of their residential investment portfolio all helping to put you the landlord on to the road to financial freedom.

To speak to an advisor about your rental property please call 020 8 697 0984. Alternatively you can visit www.discountletting.co.uk to view a full list of benefits available to landlords.