Do you REALLY know who
you are renting out your property to? How do you know that the person you meet
is the person they say they are, and not an illegal sub letter? Would you
knowingly want to be involved with shady tenants, or would you rather be
protected from them?
What if your tenant
trashes the place, rips off doors and radiators, kicks holes in the walls or
runs a cannabis factory from home? Where do you stand – probably not where you
want to be, that’s for sure. We have reports of these horror stories (and
worse!) from even some of our seasoned landlords, who all had enough experience
to cope with such matters – or so they thought. Can you imagine the stress and
financial burden this would put on a novice at the start of their investing
career?
The common denominator
here is people – well, specifically tenants. Property investors often forget
this is a PEOPLE business, it’s all about how you deal with them and how they
interact with you, how you pick the good from the bad in the first place, and
how do you know who to trust? Well if you don’t do thorough due diligence on
your new tenants then the truth is you don’t. Would you honestly spend, for
example, a quarter of a million pounds on a nice 3 bed semi and then
effectively hand it over to strangers? Some landlords, and even agents, state
that they want (and will get) a tenant living in an empty property before the
week is out. Hmm, OK, let’s think about this – I don’t know you, you want to
potentially be entrusted with what is in effect a LOT OF MY MONEY tied up in
the value of my property, not to mention that I will effectively be offering
you credit to the value of 6 months’ rent – well I certainly want to know all I
can about you my friend! First I want to take up references from your current
and previous addresses, I also want to contact your employer to confirm not
just your salary but also that you DO HAVE a permanent position there for a
period covering your initial tenancy. Got any CCJs or financial defaults? If so
then I want to know, because as I don’t know you, it tells me you are a
financial risk that I could do without.
Obviously, anyone’s
situation can change, so I’d like to pop around in 4 weeks to make sure you
have settled in OK and got to grips with everything at the property – oh did I
mention, I’ll be back in 3 months as well, and every 3 months after that, just
to keep an eye on my property. Sorry what’s that, you don’t think that’s fair?
Well there are currently 97 other agents listed locally on Rightmove, perhaps
they could accommodate you.
You see at Belvoir, our
landlords get the protection from all of the above in the detailed level of
service and tenant referencing we offer. What we want our landlords to
understand is that we DO know our applicants even before they become our
tenants, and that’s one of the things you pay your monthly fee towards. Come
on, would you really gamble £250k for a saving of around £16 per month on your
fee? If so, there are 97 phone calls you could be making. If not, just the 1
call to us on 01843 293 293 is all you need to make.
