If you are a self managing landlord then nothing is more irritating than tenants not turning up for a property viewing. After all, we are busy people and the last thing we need is a tenant who doesn’t turn up.

No doubt we have all been in the situation where we have arranged to meet a tenant at a certain time during the day, only to find that 15 minutes after the agreed time the tenant has still not arrived - how annoying! Read the rest of this entry »

A survey by The Deposit Protection Service (DPS) claims that a majority of tenants get on well with their residential landlord.

As I strongly believe – property is a people business and there is nobody more important to our property business than our tenants!

About 84 percent of tenants have a ‘harmonious’ relationship with their landlord and a quarter of these went on to call it a ‘fantastic’ relationship. Just 16 percent of those who completed the survey were not happy with their landlord relationship. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s official – there is not a single location in the UK that has not been affected by the property price falls. Even residential properties in prime City of London locations have seen steep falls, says yet another report.

There was a good 11.5% fall during the third quarter of 2008, which was preceded by a 6.8% fall in the second quarter, according to the Jones Lang LaSalle London Prime New Homes index. Read the rest of this entry »

In the last blog I talked about typical costs you can offset to reduce your property tax liability that often get overlooked by us.

As you are aware, as landlords we are responsible for maintaining the property. Therefore, any property maintenance related costs can also be offset against our rental income. Read the rest of this entry »

OK – so all investors and landlords who have benefited from last week’s 1.5% base interest rate reduction are still smiling, and rightfully so!

The chances are we’ll be smiling even more if the base rate continues to come down over the next few months, as indicated by most financial experts. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems a long while now since we heard every other person talking about programmes such as location, location, location! In fact, it is probably the last thing that most investors are worrying about at the present time.

The word on the lips of landlords and property investors more so nowadays, is cashflow, cash flow, cash flow! After all, this is the single biggest challenge that is facing us in the current economic climate. Buying more property is off the radar for most investors and instead it is a case of now getting their ‘property house’ in order. Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting question isn’t it - ‘Would you really drop rents?’ I know that for many landlords the answer to this question is a definite ‘No’, but I think it really needs to be thought about more carefully, and the benefits and drawbacks carefully scrutinised.

I have dropped rents in the past and here is the criteria that I consider when a tenant tells me they are struggling to pay the rent: Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday 11th November I gave a talk to members of York Residential Landlords Association. I brought up the subject of rents and asked how many landlords were finding that they were increasing rents in the current economic climate. The results were as follows:
 
0% were dropping rents

5% were increasing rents

95% were keeping rents the same. Read the rest of this entry »

Graham Beale, the CEO of Nationwide Building Society believes that housing prices will continue to hit new lows during 2008-09 and possibly in 2010 too.  Read the rest of this entry »

Despite a year of falling property prices, British parents are still buoyant about the property market in the years to come. This was evident from a study which showed that nearly half of British parents have offered financial assistance to their grown up offspring to help them to get on to the property ladder.

The study was carried out by market research firm BDRC. The study revealed that 40 percent of parents over the age of 45 believed that investing in the UK property market will give secure returns to their children in the future. Read the rest of this entry »