Letting a property can seem very daunting at first, and it is very easy to ignore the rules and regulations to make life easier for yourself.
This is a deadly trap, and although you may get away with it, to begin with, one day, you will be caught out – especially as many tenants now have access to websites such as ours where they can seek advice and read about the laws governing rental property.
It can go wrong and cost the landlord money that he can ill afford to lose and potentially face imprisonment. Therefore, as a landlord, it is imperative that you have access to information and help that will ensure that you abide by the rules and make money rather than lose it.
All too often we hear of cowboy landlords who have been caught out, and it is hoped that by reading this booklet and implementing the various bits of information that you will remain above board and have a happy time renting your property.
We also feel that should you use an agent, you will have a good understanding of what to look for in the agency to ensure that you are not getting trapped into working with a substandard agency.
- Again, there are no regulations that prohibit anyone from running a lettings agency, and the sums of money that these people handle can be rather large.
Letting is a good option if you want to get a feel for an area before making a major financial commitment. However, the letting market in the UK has remained strong, so it is not necessarily a cheap option, and with house prices having dropped over the last year, many agents report that sales are beginning to pick up.
DIY Marketing Your Rental Homes
With the growth of the internet and the cost of advertising your property being very low, why not cut out the letting agent and do it your self.
We all move house occasionally, and many of the UK will rent their property. Every city and town in the UK has many lettings agents, offering local or national homes and apartments to rent. Property Marketing means the moving public to find your property listing, meaning more traffic and better results you with no agency costs. There are lots of companies who will coordinate and market your online listing and advise you on which length of tenancy will gain you the most profit!
Find a property (rental or sale) is a term used in most UK regions to refer to find a new home.
See: Do Landlords Really Need To Use A Letting Agent?
What about handing it over to an agent?
Letting agents have larger marketing budgets and should, in theory, be able to advertise your property to a more significant number of people.
Letting agents offer an array of diverse services, some of which include the introduction of a landlord to a tenant, where the landlord bears the cost in the form of a commission on the total rent to be received, and the tenants are charged a processing fee in advance. At times the agents may also offer to collect the rents on behalf of the landlords also on a commission. The most popular service extended by letting agencies is full management of the entire estate. In this situation, the agents manage the estate day-to-day.
The letting agents industry has shown significant growth thanks to the increased urban population and general economic development within the region, which has seen the services of letting agents increase in demand. As a natural consequence, many have now set up shops and have started letting agencies, resulting in cut-throat competition among them.
To counter the competition, the firms have adopted web marketing strategies, which have proved effective in reaching out to the markets. The only drawback to this is the problem of search engine rankings.
What a firm needs to attain top search engine rankings is a comprehensive SEO campaign that will not only help the site to climb up the search engine rankings but also drive more traffic to the website, which will undoubtedly lead to more sales being made by the organisation.
