The sharp fall in sterling and the possibility of interest rates touching zero has started to lure overseas property investors back to the UK. The property market has declined by 15% to 20% from its highs of a year earlier, and this means that cash rich investors in particular are able to snap up properties at significant discounts.

The pound has almost become equal to the Euro and has suffered losses against the yen, dollar and Swiss franc. As the economic outlook gets gloomier many feel that sterling will continue to decline.

Apparently Americans and Europeans have started to show more interest in UK properties although they have not yet started to buy. Investors from Asia too are showing interest in luxury flats as well as houses in London. (more…)

Times are tough for many landlords in the UK because of an oversupply of rented accommodation. However, there are things that a landlord can do to continue attracting the best tenants.

The biggest challenge facing the more established landlords is the newer breed of landlords that has emerged over the last 12 months.

This new breed of landlord is the one who has struggled to sell their property and has therefore decided to let the property out instead.

This new breed of buy-to-let landlord is posing a threat to the conventional ones with their modernized properties. This means that the more traditional landlords are finding their houses lying vacant for months as tenants are deciding to rent these more modern properties instead.

To compete with the modern investor, landlords must now renovate their properties and give them a facelift. (more…)

Making sure you get the right tenant in your property is the biggest worry a landlord has.

Therefore as part of your vetting process you should get your tenants to complete a tenant application form.

Presenting your tenant with an application form and saying that they have to complete it to ‘apply’ to rent your property will quickly get rid of the time wasters and leave you with the ones who are serious about renting your property.

On your application form you should look to capture the following key pieces of information about the tenant:

- Previous address
- Current employment details including references
- Proof of ID (passport or driving licence number)
- Guarantor details (i.e. who will pay the rent if they default)
- Emergency contact details
- Previous landlord details
- Other information (i.e. whether they smoke, have pets, have a car etc)
- Copy of last three months bank statements

Remember, if the tenant is not happy to provide any of the information above then you should really look to move the tenant on. At the end of the day you want a professional and profitable relationship with your tenants. (more…)

Apparently, an increasing number of estate agents are reporting that landlords have become so frustrated with declining property prices and increasing rent arrears, that many have decided to cut their losses and sell-up!

They are not prepared to wait for the market recovery as they don’t feel it will be coming anytime soon, and they are finding it difficult to cope in the current market conditions.

So, are landlords right to bailout now, especially when the market has already fallen by over 15%? (more…)

As a fall out from the economic downturn and credit crunch, unemployment in on the increase. Only yesterday it was announced that unemployment was now over 1.8 million. This of course means that more and more tenants who are living in rented accommodation are starting to default on rent payments, as a result of losing their jobs.

The biggest expense a landlord has is paying the mortgage on the property and, therefore, if rent is not promptly paid and arrears build up then there is a risk that the landlord could end up being repossessed.
 
Landlords who do not have a rent guarantee in place are not covered by rental insurance and run a great risk of not being able to collect rent and the legal expenses incurred to tackle the problem.

As more and more landlords have had to tackle the issue of defaulting tenants, the take up of rent-guarantee-insurance has been on the rise in recent months.

Basically, a rent guarantee scheme will pay the landlord the rent that the tenant owes if they default. (more…)

Over the last few months we have been busy developing a scaled sown version of our property management solution for the Residential Landlords Associations’ (RLA) members.

And the good news is that it has been officially launched today!

This software tool is free for any existing members of the RLA, and will provide you with the following benefits:

- property management – create your properties within the software
- tenant management – quickly set-up your tenants and create their tenancies, detailing the income you are receiving
- legal document generation – automatic generation of all legal documents including AST, Section 8 and Section 21
- reminder system – set up the software to remind you about expiring safety certificates, insurance policies, tenancy agreements etc.  (more…)