How to avoid the voids .... ! Useful tips to avoid Landlords' worst nightmare ... !

[Vanessa]

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!

[Ollie Cornes (Juicy Property)]

Here's a few

Handle repairs professionally and quickly - happy tenants stay
Keep rent at market levels (not above) - don't give them a reason to leave
When a tenant gives notice, look for a way to keep them
Consider dropping the rent to keep a good tenant
Consider moving a tenant leaving one property into another that is vacant & suits them better
Start advertising as soon as a tenant gives notice
Use an AST where the tenant gives consent to allow viewings
Do inspections during tenancies to reduce the work that needs doing during the void
Work out the daily rent so you know what the void costs every single day
Focus on tenants who are likely to stay long-term (possibly on benefits)
Do proper credit & reference checks to avoid bad tenants
Consider an incentive program to reward long-stayers
Maintain a database of tenants needing a place
Talk to the local council to ask if they have anyone needing housing
Advertise the vacancy everywhere on the net, possibly also local paper and a To Let board

Ollie
www.juicy-property.co.uk
www.twitter.com/juicyproperty
Online property management system

[Vanessa]

Great tips Ollie. Would you mind if we tweeted them out, credited to you?

[John Corey]

Vanessa,

Ollie and I were discussing this yesterday after meeting the NLA. How timely.

I think the topic should be broken into two half. One is to avoid the voids as in reduce the number of times a tenant moves out. The other half deals more with how quickly you can find the next tenant.

For example, broadly marketing implies you have a void coming up or already taking place. Offering incentives so tenants stay longer is closer to a customer loyalty program.

Mr Landlord has a lot of useful information on the topic. The site is pretty ugly but the individual really knows his topic and have multiple decades of experience being a landlord of a large portfolio. He operates in the US so not everything will map directly to the UK market.

John Corey
Follow me on Twitter-> www.twitter.com/john_corey
www.ChelseaPrivateEquity.com/blog

[nick tadd]

Good on you Ollie, thanks for these tips.

N

[Nick Parkin]

REI said:

Vanessa,
Mr Landlord has a lot of useful information on the topic.

My god that has to be the worst website I have ever seen! ROFL

[Ahmwaah Charles]

Nick Parkin said:

REI said:

Vanessa,
Mr Landlord has a lot of useful information on the topic.

My god that has to be the worst website I have ever seen! ROFL

Ditto! It was seriously bad. I'm offended that the webmaster would allow innocent civilians to view such a monstrosity. There must be some legislation against such public indecency! lol.

[nick tadd]

Yes I've just had a look - anyone got any pain-killers?

Still as JC stated there is valuable material there.

N

[Nick Parkin]

I have seen another that was worse, but I think it meant to be worse. That web designer isn't aiming for the atrocity that he has achieved!

[nick tadd]

Ooh go on tell us Nick which one is it?

N

Nick Parkin said:

I have seen another that was worse, but I think it meant to be worse. That web designer isn't aiming for the atrocity that he has achieved!

[John Corey]

Having met the guy a couple of times I would say Mr. Landlord's passion is his rental business plus selling training to others who want to do what he does. Clearly the person does not care how bad his 'front door' [the website] looks to the broader business community.

One idea that I picked up from Mr Landlord is the idea of switching people from a monthly rental payment to bi-weekly if they get paid that way. The switch matches the tenant's cash flow. The switch is done by taking the monthly and dividing by 2. This means the tenant pays more when you add it up on an annual basis so the landlord is collecting 13 months rent in a 12 month period. The tenant is made aware that they are paying a premium for being on the payment plan. 1 out of 5 are still willing to switch. Similar to people who use credit end up paying more than people who pay with cash.

Another idea is to offer a reward program for the best tenants. When you sign up a new tenant they are told about the gift certificate they will receive after 12 months and annually each year for the first 3 years. They are asked to pick out the gift certificate when they sign up. A direct way to say that you reward people for staying.

A third idea is after three years 1/10 of the deposit is refunded to the tenant. This continues for the next ten years. The long stay tenants end up with little to no money being held by the landlord. Mr Landlord figures that after a few years just about all the costs will be wear and tear. The savings from reducing the voids exceeds the value of holding one month's rent as a deposit.

The principal behind Mr Landlord's thinking is each tenant is like an airline customer to an airline. He created a loyalty program and pays out based on longevity. Take care of the best tenants and they will refer good people to you plus they will reduce the costs associated with change-overs.

John Corey
Follow me on Twitter-> www.twitter.com/john_corey
www.ChelseaPrivateEquity.com/blog

[Marcus]

Worst?

Make sure your sound is on.

[James Elliott]

Some good points by Ollie.

Landlords offering a (fair) rent reduction in exchange for good tenants is a major one.
Equally offering a (fair) rent reduction in exchange for a longer than standard AST satisfies both parties.

Use an estate agent that works for tenants as well as landlords rather than one who will lie to a tenant in order to secure the commission. This only leads to tenant/landlord disputes post occupation.