How To Rent Out Successfully

Posted on May 24 2017 - 6:52pm by Editorial Staff

Whether you are renting out your home. Whether you are buying-to-let. Or whether you are building to let. There are always ways a landlord can win at the game of renting. They just have to be able to be brave enough to take the plunge and become a landlord in the first place. Once that is done, then the new landlord should begin to take the advice below into consideration.

If you are the new landlord in question then the first thing you should be doing is starting to understand all the responsibilities you now have. Yes, it’s a business and you have a responsibility to you and your finances. But you also need to understand that you have a responsibility to tend to those that become your tenants too. You need to make yourself responsible for all queries they may have. You must make yourself available to them as much as is possible. And you need to make yourself responsible for all the necessary repairs and maintenance that has to take place in the property. If you don’t then your relationship with your tenants will sour. This could then lead to you being negatively reviewed in the future, and therefore negatively viewed by potential tenants also.

But it’s not all about staying atop of your responsibilities as a landlord. You have to ensure everybody else involved in the venture stays atop of theirs too and that you aren’t being taken advantage of. First and foremost, you have to ensure that your tenants are staying atop of their housekeeping responsibilities. If you want to rent successfully then the fact of the matter is is that you must always have tenants in the properties you let. And you’re not going to get tenants in these properties if the properties aren’t appealing. Therefore, you must always ensure that any current tenants you have neither damage the property nor dirty it to a point where the cost of cleaning it would be too extensive. Something that is far more important than the cleanliness of your household, however, is that you keep a track of what your tenants are doing in your property. Specifically, you should be ensuring that they are not allowing more people to live there without your consent.

As the world has become more accessible to all, more and more people have taken to visiting other countries. And not only do they visit them, but they then decide to stay in them once their allotted visiting time is up. And where do they stay when this time is up? They stay in the properties that their friends are renting, illegally. They do so because it is easy for them to go undetected by the law when they do so. And it is for this reason that you should always take to visiting the properties that you rent out in order to ensure nobody is staying their without your consent or the consent of the law. If the law finds out that this is the case before you then you will be in hot water with them, whether you knew about it or not. A tell tale sign to look out for, of course, is an increased number of beds in your property. The moral of the story is, by allowing your tenants to slip up with their responsibilities you could find yourself slipping up in the world of renting as well as in the eyes of the law.

Something else that can lead you to an easy slip-up in the world of renting is pricing. The prices you set on your properties is the be all and end all of your success as a landlord. By pricing too high, you scare potential tenants away. By pricing too low, you don’t reap the financial rewards you both deserve and need from the venture. For this reason, you should always ensure you do your homework before you set any prices. You should look at the affluence of the area you are renting out in. You should check for any potential developments in the area that may hike the prices up, or bring them crashing down. You should ensure that the type of property and the size of property you are renting out fits the bill in regards to how much it costs. And you must most certainly only set prices that your desired clientele will be able to realistically afford. Because of all of this prior homework should be done on your behalf.

You could check the prices of properties in the local area or even the general prices of houses for rent further afield. You could take into consideration any developments that are going to be undertaken on a specific area in the future that will bring tenants to it in their droves. If your renting venture is taking place in England, then the development of the HS2 railway that will link London to other cities such as Birmingham should be of great importance to you. And you should determine who your property is going to be most appealing to, and you should then price accordingly. If your property is of family size and is near a school, for example, then families with children who are renting should be your target audience. And upon deciding that this is the case, you should price according to what an average family would be able to afford. Nothing more, for their sake. And nothing less, for yours.

Being a landlord, whether on a full time or part time basis, can be a very fruitful and rewarding exercise. It’s possible to make both a living from being a landlord or just a bit of extra cash, depending on how much you wish to put into the venture. But, no matter what type of landlord you are, you have to be willing to work hard enough and take a whole host of aspects into consideration. When you do this, you will give yourself the best opportunity to make money. And, you never know, the money you make from your renting venture could even mean you are able to afford to rent a winter villa in Spain for yourself!

Image Source

About the Author

Editorial Staff at I2Mag is a team of subject experts.