A cautionary
tale to all landlords...
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 01908 562582
is all you need to make.
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