Category: News | Published on 22 Feb 2012 | Written by mark

There are 2 basic ways to approach finding a tenant - either do it yourself or get someone else to do it for you. In this bulletin we will focus mainly on how to find a tenant yourself but first let us briefly consider the alternative option

 Using a letting agent to find your tenant

 If you plan to get someone else to find a tenant for you, you will most likely turn to a letting agent who will handle the whole process of finding the tenant, referencing and credit checking them, preparing an inventory and moving the tenants in to the property.

 

 If you go down this route your main concern will be to make sure you choose a good letting agent. The best place to start is to talk to other investors and find out which agents they use and how they rate them. When you have a short list of 3 or 4 agents call them or go to visit them at their office to get a feel for how they operate before you actually discuss your property.

  Sometimes I will call an agent, initially posing as a tenant, to observe how welcoming they are to potential tenants . If you visit the agent, look around the office and observe how efficient the operation looks. Is it tidy and are staff pleasant and smart ? .

 When you do reveal to the agent that you are a landlord you should treat the conversation as though you are interviewing them for the job of letting your property. Ask them questions such as how quickly they expect to let your property, how many properties they have let in the last month and how many empty properties they have on their books. You should also find out how they plan to market your property. It is essential for an agent to have a strong internet presence in addition to the more traditional routes to market such as advertisements in local newspapers.

 Here at Crown we use an agent to manage our properties because we are too busy running this business to manage them ourselves. The vast majority of our properties our managed by National Property Group and we strongly recommend that you check them out if you are planning to use a letting agent.

 Be aware though that most letting agents will charge between 75% and 100% of the first month' s rent to let your property, which is one the reasons that many landlords choose to find their own tenants.

 

 Finding a tenant yourself

Many people choose to use a letting agent because they believe that finding a tenant is very difficult and time consuming, but this is need not be the case if you only own a few properties. There are a number of ways to find tenants and a well executed marketing campaign will usually result in you finding several high quality candidates suitable for your property.

 Newspaper Advertising

 Advertising in local newspapers normally attracts a large number of enquiries, but to ensure that you attract the right types of candidate for the property bear the following in mind: 

• Examine other landlords' advertisements and make your rent competitive, given the size and quality and location of accommodation.
• Be specific about the location of your property so as to only attract calls from people who want to live in that area.
•  Use the three best assets of the dwelling in the first sentence of main body of your advert.
• Use a headline that catches the reader's attention and make the advert as succinct as possible. Readers will be bored by long verbose descriptions and every word will cost you more money!  
• Plan ahead. Be available to answer calls once the advert is published. Avoid using an answer-machine as some callers will not leave a message.  When calls are expected, have a pen available, a diary for viewing appointments, and a list of suitable questions.

   You need to check rates before booking local newspaper advertising as they can vary massively and the charges levied by some newspapers are so excessive that using them to advertise for tenants is not cost effective.

  Local shop windows

 Often convenience stores and post offices will allow you to put a postcard in their window for a modest charge. The content on the postcard should not differ too much from that in a newspaper advertisement as it needs to quickly capture the attention of people passing by.

 The great advantage of this method is that you can target the area where the property is located very precisely and attract potential tenants who already know the area and want to be there. It is also a cheap form of advertising, costing as little as £1 per postcard, per week. Postcards placed in busy local shops will usually generate a good number of enquiries.

 Local Company Notice boards

A postcard placed on a local company's notice board can be a useful way to find a tenant, particularly if the company has a lot of staff relocating to the area. I have found this method particularly useful when letting a property close to a local hospital as there is normally a constant stream of new staff arriving in the area looking for accommodation.

 Landlord Accreditation schemes

 These are often run by local authorities, sometimes in conjunction with local universities or other organisations. You will have to sign up to a code of conduct, undertake training, and commit to adhere to a minimum standard of amenities in your properties. However, the scheme will often include the free marketing of all your available properties, which is a significant bonus. Local authority housing departments will often approach landlords in accreditation schemes, seeking to rent a property for one of their clients, before the property even becomes empty, thus reducing any void periods.

 

 The Internet

 The internet is constantly growing in popularity with tenants seeking rental accommodation. In the not too distant future it will become impossible to ignore the internet when seeking to find a tenant. There are many websites that will market your property on their site for little or no cost at all. However their own website alone will not usually attract enough visitors to find you a tenant quickly.

 These sites become effective, and make their money, by selling you the extra service of displaying an advertisement for your property on the large national property portal sites. They also offer additional services such as the supply of 'To Let' boards, which are extremely useful for capturing passing potential tenants and alerting neighbours to the availability of the property, allowing you to harness the power of 'word of mouth'.

 In our opinion, the best website to use to find tenants at the moment is Upad.  Upad will list your property on hundreds of property portals, including the major, high traffic sites - Rightmove, Zoopla, FindaProperty, Gumtree, Globrix and Primelocation. Their strength is I getting your property massive exposure very quickly, which should lead to several tenant enquiries and a successful let.

Upad will handle all the tenant enquiries for you and deal with administrative tasks such as referencing and credit checking, but you will meet prospective tenants and show then around the property so you can select the tenants that you prefer.

 

 

 

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Return - Print