It's Christmas Eve! We hope that you are now beginning to unplug and relax and are getting around to spending quality time with family and friends.
Christmas is always a time for reflection and also the chance to look forward to another New Year, and starting afresh with renewed energy and purpose.
We were down at Camber Sands yesterday putting up the Christmas decorations for our Christmas guests at our 2 bed holiday let "SeaBreeze", located adjacent to the world famous Camber Sands beach near Rye, in E. Sussex. Whilst on the beach we thought we would exercise the Flip-Video cam and have a chat.
Seabreeze is now in its second season and so far we're very impressed with the occupancy it has achieved. It would appear that we are having somewhat of a renaissance in the Great British Holiday. However, that does rely on "the great British beach", and I'm sure you'll agree with me that this is one of them!
You can follow the adventures of SeaBreeze on Twitter @seabreezecamber.
You can read about using social media to market holiday lets >>> here.
I came across Efua Adams of MK Furniture Rentals recently at one of my speaking engagements.
I was impressed by her new service and the flexibility it affords property professionals, especially in these challenging times where we all need to hang on to our capital and keep an eye on our cash flow!
Renting furniture means no capital outlay, the monthly payment is tax deductible, and you can send the furniture back at the end of the term, or buy it outright.
A well-furnished and "staged" property could be the difference between selling your development, or renting your BTL investment, so this is another good tip for avoiding the voids!
MK Furniture Rentals can deliver your furniture pack nationwide within 48 hours of confirmation of your order.
What other lesser known products and services have you found to be helpful in your property business?
Generally speaking, the "void" period is a Landlord's worst nightmare, so it makes sense to find ways to avoid it at all costs, especially in the challenging and highly competitive market conditions we are all experiencing.
Here are my Top Ten Tips to avoid the void:
1. Handle repairs professionally and quickly - happy tenants stay longer! (Thanks to @juicyproperty for this tip).
2. Ensure your property is "staged" for marketing photographs and ensure that these photograph are of a high quality. Tenants "buy" from the photos far more than the marketing spiel, so ensure that the house is immaculately clean, the lights are on, there are some thoughtful finishing touches.
3. Ensure that the property is immaculately clean and maintained. The heating should be on for viewings. Use "plug in" air fresheners or spray Fabreze to get rid of any nasty niffs as smells are very off putting!
4. Ensure "kerb appeal" from the outside, with a well kept garden and house name/no., with outside security light. We passed a property today where the Landlord hadn't bothered to put a house number on the door, and the developer's sign for the Plot Number was the only identification. There was also a large pile of old carpet in the front garden. This does not give the appearance of a "home" that the owner cares about. Tenants want to feel "safe and secure" in their new home, so ensure this is addressed by simple security measures.
5. In areas of over-supply of rental stock, ensure your property stands out from the crowd. Give it a unique selling point. The days of identi-kit, "me too", magnolia boxes are over. Add a few upgrades and finishing touches to ensure your property is elevated above its competitors. Think about the target market for your property, and try to put yourself in their shoes. Young professionals/students/families? What little touches can you add to the property that will appeal to that target? An example of this is a friend of ours who has a lot of student lets. He fits all his houses with jacuzzi baths and students always pick his houses for obvious reasons! Look to see where you can create "lifestyle" touches i.e. garden furniture for the garden, plasma screen TV, etc.
6. Offer incentives to get prospective tenants to commit. This could be anything from a crate of beer in the fridge, to six months free broadband, to six months gym membership included. (The Gym offers membership for £14.99 per month and is 24 hours per day. New gyms being added all the time. Have a look at http://www.thegymgroup.com/ for details).
7. Keep an open and friendly dialogue with your tenants yourself (or through an approved agent) to ensure the continued enjoyment of their stay at your property. Treat even small problems or niggles seriously so that they feel valued as a tenant. If the tenant hands in their notice, find out the reason why, and see if there is anything you can do to persuade them to stay.
8. It is our advice not to rock the boat with an increase in rent at the moment. Tenants are worried about the economic down-turn and fearful about losing their jobs, so an increase in the rent might be enough to tip them over the edge to hand in their notice.
9. In the current market conditions, be price sensitive with your rents. Remember: it is better to have 80% of something, rather than 100% of nothing! Even one month's void will eat into your profit, so endeavour to let your property out as quickly as possible, even if that means taking a hit on the rent. You can offer an "introductory" special offer rent to be reviewed after six months.
You need to consider the cost of holding out for the right price. As an example, suppose you're renting a property and asking £700 per month. Within a short time of advertising the property you get an offer for £650. You reject this offer because you believe your property is smarter than other rental properties available at £650. However, suppose it takes an extra 2 months to get the rent you want of £700.
Have you achieved a good bargain? Your initial though may be "yes" because you've achieved £700. But infact over a 12 month period if you had let at £650 per month your income would be £7,800. If you held out for an extra 2 months until you got a rent of £700, your income over the same period would only be £7,000.
Your aim both in selecting the right property and in determining the acceptable rent should be to get the property let as quickly as possible. (Thanks to @marywaring for this one!).
10. However, it's not good enough having a great property to rent if no-one knows that it's there, and there is no better way of making your property as visible as possible with the minimum of effort as by using the internet.
Websites such as Rightmove and FindaProperty get the widest coverage, so it is crucial to get listed on as many of these as possible, including free listing sites like Gumtree and ToRent. This said, it can be time-consuming and costly getting your property onto all of them, so find a company that can do this for you. Upad, for example, for a one-off fee of £59.00, automatically lists any property uploaded onto its site onto over 100 portals sites, including the aforementioned sites. This way, most of the work is taken out of your hands while the internet is still working hard to find your tenant.
On that note, I thought Landlords and property investors might be interested to know that we are working with Upad.co.uk on a social media campaign called Avoid the Voids. Upad would like to been seen to be leading the way in supporting Landlords in getting their properties rented fast via maximum exposure with minimum hassle and expense!
This aligns with the core message of Upad: to avoid voids by exposing your property for rent to the largest possible marketplace to maximise exposure.
Upad.co.uk is the largest online lettings agent, helping landlords let out residential property both quickly and easily. Upad.co.uk allows you to list your property across more than 100 online lettings agencies, property websites and portals, connecting you with the perfect tenant for your UK property to let.
Upad also wants to offer the definitive guide of strategies to avoid the void and advice on how to make your property stand out from the crowd to ensure that you avoid the void at all costs. We are currently working on this as an eBook and it will be free to all subscribers.
If you have found the above tips helpful, you can follow Upad's information stream on Twitter @avoidthevoids for hints, tips, and Landlord intelligence to help you stay ahead of the competition.
You will notice that the Twitter avatar (pictured above) has "Let by Upad" on it, meaning that every tweet that Upad sends out will reinforce this message and remind us to take positive steps to avoid the void.
What do you do to avoid the void?
What else do Landlord's fear most?
Share your tips and stories here and we will credit you/your business in the Upad guide!
For a while now, Nick and I have been talking about how the business world is changing at the fastest pace in history, and a by-product of this is a growing trend that will see more and more people working from home.
Large companies will re-structure with fewer employees and more contract workers and freelancers, who are brought in on a project-by-project basis. The recession is also creating unemployment, and we will see the launch of many new home-based businesses over the next few years as a result of that.
Speaking as home workers ourselves, we conduct and manage virtually all our business via the web, and we are totally hamstrung without it! I have mentioned at many of my speaking engagements over the last twelve months, how important broadband speed is going to be, and how property investors/Landlords need to understand this and ensure that any property they buy has good broadband connectivity. This will be an increasingly important facility for tenants, and will contribute towards future-proofing the property in terms of desirability.
The impact that the web is having on society and humanity in general is touching every aspect of our lives, including property investment, and in many different ways and at many different levels.
I was therefore interested to see this article from ISP Review:
The results from 721 respondents to our latest monthly survey reveal that 75% of readers would not buy a house, even a lovely one, if the best broadband ISP speed it could achieve was just 1Mbps. In addition, 51% would be willing to pay more for a house with "faster" broadband.
Some 61.7% of those surveyed said that the minimum broadband speed they require would be "More than 4Mbps", with just 20.8% voting for 4Mbps itself, 10.8% voting for 2Mbps and a measly 6.6% saying they'd settle for 1Mbps. Failing that, the most attractive alternative method to a fixed land-line broadband connection was found to be a Fixed Wireless ( Wi-Fi ) service (52.5%).
Would you buy a lovely house if it could only have up to 1Mbps broadband?
No - 75.1% Yes - 24.8%
What is the minimum broadband speed you require (pick closest)?
More than 4Mbps - 61.7% 4Mbps - 20.8% 2Mbps - 10.8% 1Mbps - 6.6%
Which alternative method to land-line broadband would you consider first?
Would you pay more for a house with faster broadband?
Yes - 51.3% No - 48.6%
People clearly place a significant emphasis on broadband performance, so much so that an overwhelming majority would even be willing to give up on an almost perfect dream home in favour of a cosmetically less attractive one that received faster speeds.
Estate agents have long voiced the importance of broadband equipped homes, though few may have recognised that modern demand also requires the service to be fast, affordable and flexible. This highlights the importance of being able to deliver speeds of more than double the current government target, which is committed to delivering a minimum 2Mbps broadband speed to everybody by 2012.
This may now simply end up being too little, too late.
Article ends.
The bigger picture to all of this is how broadband connectivity will be a key influencer in helping this country come out of recession. As Ollie Cornes wrote on our Property Tribes forum:
"Landlords will have more technology to support their businesses - easier remote access to suppliers, staff, tenants, information, research, performance. Tenants will have better access to technology as well, in terms of choosing suitable accommodation (Zoopla is now starting to challenge Rightmove, finally), but also will DEMAND better technology. Too many organisations in the UK have said "but why would anyone want 100Mbps broadband?", but you only need to go to South Korea or mainland Europe to see just how important it is to have a good connection to the net. Properties that are in the slow-lanes of the grid make it harder for the occupants to home-work, and improve their quality of life through the sensible use of technology. A big fat broadband pipe means multiple family member streaming video at the same time, it means video-conferencing can go 3D and be immersive, it means we can have a phone at home with as many features as a business phone, it means we can have more devices in the home connected, access all music ever recorded, all TV ever made, all films ever made.
Re Vanessa's post the other day about broadband affecting property values, I'm sure this is the case, and will only increase. The Government's target of 2Mbps minimum per property by 2012 is so lacking in ambition it's comatose - so those properties that have the ability to get fast broadband will certainly be easier to sell and rent. Sadly there's little we as landlords can do to edge this along, except perhaps to actively promote good connectivity where it is available".
If you would like to see other property investors views on this subject, please join our Property Tribes forum >>>>here.
If you would like to see what other long term trends we are predicting in property, please click >>>> here.
Our next property/social media networking event in association with Guildford/Weybridge ecademies is on Monday 30th November at the Ship Hotel in Weybridge. Full details and to register click >>>> here.
BREAKING PROPERTY NEWS: Passive Investments: Andy Shaw and Greg Ballard head to the bankruptcy courts having lost £thousands for investors who invested in their "Armchair Investor" scheme. You can read the full story >>>> here.
The Power of belonging ... Why we started our own property tribe.
A few weeks ago, inspired by Seth Godin, and the fact that so many property forums are drowning in spam and commercial posts, we decided to form our own Property Tribe. We wanted to provide a focal point for our property community where people passionate about property could share knowledge and experience and engage in authentic and valuable discussion with other like-minded individuals.
On a beautiful sunny morning, what better time to start thinking about Summer holidays?
What comes to mind when you think of the British seaside holiday? Candy floss, crazy golf and ballroom dancing? Cream teas, milkshakes, and fish and chips? Sandcastles, buckets and spades, and paddling? Not to mention the miles of beautiful and unspoiled coast of this island nation - from sweeping sandy beaches to craggy cliffs. Wherever you are in England, you are never more than 73 miles from the sea! It's ingrained in our genetic make-up and culture!
It's funny. When people find out that we're involved in property, their faces take on a sad frown and they say "oh it must be so difficult for you at the moment". That makes us smile. We had a call from the BBC earlier this week asking us to contribute to a forthcoming programme called "Property Watch". In the course of the conversation, the Producer asked us if we were feeling negative about the business we were in. "Far from it", we replied, "there's never been greater opportunity for those who choose to see it that way". But while property is our main focus, and it's great to feel so passionate about something, we'd be the first to admit it's not the be all and end all of everything.
We were driving back from speaking at the Lincs Property Investor Network on Friday, when we had a phone call to tell us that our seven year old niece Alicia, had been involved in a serious accident and was in hospital. From being jolly and looking forward to the weekend, the atmosphere in the car changed instantly. It was a wake-up call for us to hear our family members in such distress, and, as we changed course to drive to the hospital, we pondered about what matters most in life.
When he began teaching at Cornell, the Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov said he knew just two things: One, life is beautiful, and two, life is sad. The reason life is sad, he said, is because it's going to end.
Here at 4 Walls, we have always been of the opinion that, as professional Landlords, we should offer a superior product and a superior service. As a Landlord, you are a "service provider" and therefore your success will be determined by the level of service you offer your clients. This has never been more true than in the challenging and competitive market conditions we are currently all experiencing.
Clients (tenants) have a great deal of choice, and they KNOW it.
We believe it will be the professional Landlords who survive and prosper in these challenging times.
Here are some of our tips to be a winner in the lettings game:
In areas of over-supply of rental stock, ensure your property stands out from the crowd. Give it a unique selling point. The days of identi-kit, "me too", magnolia boxes are over. Add a few upgrades and finishing touches to ensure your property is elevated above its competitors. An example of this is a friend of ours who has a lot of student lets. He fits all his houses with jacuzzi baths and students always pick his houses for obvious reasons! Look to see where you can create "lifestyle" touches i.e. garden furniture for the garden, plasma screen TV, etc.
Ensure "kerb appeal" from the outside, with a well kept garden and house name/no., with outside security light. We passed a property today where the Landlord hadn't bothered to put a house number on the door, and the developer's sign for the Plot Number was the only identification. There was also a large pile of old carpet in the front garden. This does not give the appearance of a "home" that the owner cares about.
Ensure your property is "staged" for marketing photographs and ensure that these are of high quality. Tenants "buy" from the photos far more than the marketing spiel, so ensure that the house is immaculately clean, the lights are on, there are some thoughtful finishing touches.
Make your property work on a practical level by putting in some finishing touches like mirrors, hooks on the back of doors, some nice handwash next to the basins, shelves, and storage solutions.
Ensure that the property is immaculately clean and maintained.
Offer incentives to get prospective tenants to commit. This could be anything from a crate of beer in the fridge, to six months free broadband, to six months gym membership included. (The Gym offers membership for £14.99 per month and is 24 hours per day. New gyms being added all the time. Have a look at www.thegymgroup.com for details).
It's worth paying a bit extra for decent mattresses. If your tenants can't get a good night's sleep, they will soon leave. Ensure that blinds/curtains block out all the light so tenants working on shifts can sleep during the day.
The days of "that I'll do 'em" are well and truly over. Treat a tenant like that, and you will turn your tenants over a lot faster and suffer more voids as a result.
If a maintenance problem arises, sort it within 24 hours. Use local trusted workmen or post your job on www.myhammer.co.uk to get a keen quote.
Keep an open and friendly dialogue with your tenants yourself (or through an approved agent) to ensure the continued enjoyment of their stay at your property. Treat even small problems or niggles seriously so that they feel valued as a tenant.
Tenants are increasingly worried that the Landlord may be planning on selling the property as soon as the market recovers, and they will then lose their home. Reassure your tenants that you are in this for the long-term and that the property will be available as long as they want it.
It is our advice not to rock the boat with an increase in rent at the moment. Tenants are worried about the economic down-turn and fearful about losing their jobs, so an increase in the rent might be enough to tip them over the edge to hand in their notice. This could lead to a void period, which should be avoided at all costs.
See where you can add value and give value at ever opportunity. A recent example from our portfolio: a tenant reported that the fridge had stopped working and that they had lost all their week's food supply. We got the fridge fixed straight away, but we also sent the tenant some vouchers towards replacing the lost food. This again makes the tenant feel valued.
Security is increasingly important to tenants. You should ensure that there is a security light outside and you could also consider a burglar alarm.
Budget for a face-lift for your property approx. every five years to keep it up to standard. Tenants respect a pleasant environment and are more likely to keep up standards if high standards have been set from the start of the tenancy.
In the current market conditions, be price sensitive with your rents. Remember: it is better to have 80% of something, rather than 100% of nothing! Even one month's void will eat into your profit, so endeavour to let your property out as quickly as possible, even if that means taking a hit on the rent. You can offer an "introductory" special offer rent to be reviewed after six months.
Worth noting: With the new survery from the Halifax reporting massive outward migration from city centres, houses in the suburbs are less likely to suffer from over-saturation, and can be let on a single occupancy or multi-let basis.
Please add your tips below so that we can build up a wiki on how to be a professional and successful Landlord. It might sound obvious, but you will only be successful if tenants want to rent from you, and want to stay in your properties as long as possible!.
Those that treat tenants with respect and give value and add value at every turn will be the last Landlord standing!
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