The most basic piece of advice for any landlord should be that the choice of property management company is everything. Choose wisely and you can look forward to robust tenant referencing checks, frequent property check ins and a team on tap to help you, whatever your question, query or concern may be.
Choose unwisely however and you face a whole world of possibilities that range from tenants damaging and disregarding your property, right through to a whole host of potential legal issues.
Establishing a realistic letting price is the very first step in renting out your property. So seek professional counsel from a letting agent with a good reputation as, let’s face it, not all letting agents hold scruples dear. Sometimes they’ll inflate the rental price to boost their commission and ensure that they initially land your business (after all, when presented with two property prices with one significantly higher, which looks the most attractive?). So always be wary of rental prices that seem too good to be true, as they may reap only an extended waiting time sat on the rental market rather than the lucrative boost to your bank balance that you were expecting.
Don’t let the latest facts and figures from the hottest letting market of all fool you into thinking that you can get away with anything less than a pitch perfect property. You also must ensure that the right photos are taken from the right angles to harness all that online websites such as Zoopla, Prime Location and RightMove can provide.
The local knowledge of a letting agent can be the literal difference between their valuing your property correctly and their completely underestimating its true yield. What’s more it may also mean that local amenities that would serve as an instant sales point for many a potential tenant stay firmly unmentioned.
As a landlord you must have crossed all of the T’s and dotted all of the I’s as far as the legalities go (such as gaining a Gas Safe certificate, complying with Electrical regulations, purchasing relevant insurance policies and gaining an Energy Performance Certificate).
Of course all of these things can be advised upon by your reputable (and knowledgeable) letting agent. Which puts the following point on ever more shaky ground...
If you’re going to be brave and go it alone (and when we say brave, please read potentially dangerous) then you’re going to have to be all things to all people. You’ll need to be the friendly, smiling and punctual salesperson who shows potential tenants around; you’ll then need to be the always on call maintenance guy and, if things go wrong, you’ll also need to be the firm yet legally enforced debt enforcer.
We know that every letting agent in the industry promises the world and may all too often deliver anything but.
So in a world of marketing messages that may come to mean very little we like to provide some solid facts behind the whys that should see you making us your first, last and only choice of letting agent.
Read about the solid reasons that back up our proclaims to letting agent awesomeness
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