Buy to Let Tips and Advice from Letting Focus and David Lawrenson

I found something on the Internet that I had written a few months ago for Kate Faulkner’s site over at Designs on Property and thought it would be good to put in on the last blog of the year as the advice still makes good sound sense and should really be the first principles for anyone new to buying property to let out. So, here they are - my top ten tips for buy to let.

1. Buy into the right location. Look at areas that are getting or have just got faster transport links such as Folkestone in Kent or regeneration money such as Elephant & Castle in London. Also, look for areas where new employers are moving in or existing employers are hiring workers. There is lots of information on all this on the Internet and the publication Estates Gazzette, available in most libraries, has lots of news on planned regeneration. Do your research.

2. Use today’s weak market to make “hard ball” offers at below the asking price. If the vendor won’t play, simply walk away and make a cheeky offer somewhere else.

3. Buy the type of property that is in demand from tenants and for which there will be a strong resale market when you eventually come to sell. Ask letting agents for their view of what type of house is in demand locally.

4. Read up and understand your legal responsibilities as a landlord. Get my book – still the UK’s top selling property title.

5. Try to build up a deposit of at least 25 per cent to allow you access to the best mortgage rates.

6. Carefully check all prospective tenants’ references to avoid the “tenant from hell”. If your agent does this for you ask to see the references they obtained. Don’t fully trust to an agent until you have worked with them for a while and they have aerend that trust.

7. Treat tenants as you would like to be treated.

8. Keep all receipts and invoices and have a good administration system.

9. Have a sense of humour. You’ll need it from time to time.

10. If you need advice, make sure it is independent advice and not provided by someone also looking to sell a property or finance package to you.

Happy New Year to all you LettingFocus.com blog readers.

MORE ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS AND WHAT WE DO

LettingFocus.com is the home of landlord information.

Hi, I’m David Lawrenson.
I have been a landlord and property investor myself for over 25 years and am author of “Successful Property Letting” – which has been the UK’s top selling property and buy to let book for the last 3 years.
At LettingFocus.com, we help landlords and property investors make money in property by coaching them in ways that work, which are ethical and which involve minimal risk to the investor.


We pride ourselves on giving independent unbiased buy to let advice on either a one to one mentoring / coaching basis or through our occasional group seminars.
Unfortunately, in the UK today, property advice in the UK is still largely unregulated and what counts as “good advice” is too often more about making the promoter money than giving useful information to the investor.
With no links to property firms, developers or bridging loan providers we can advise on where and what type of property to buy for investment and when to buy it. We also show you how to manage tenants properly.
At a corporate level, we also provide consultancy for banks, local authorities and social housing providers – helping them with their landlord facing or buy to let product strategies. We also write for property websites and are regularly quoted by the media.
We have written articles for numerous publications including The Independent, The Telegraph and quality landlord websites.

AT OUR WEBSITE LETTINGFOCUS.COM:

THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog
THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page
ONE TO ONE PRIVATE CONSULTANCY click here: Property Mentoring
NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors:
Next Property Investment Seminar and Networking Event
We have OFFERS on a range of services and products for landlords too; click here including landlords insurance, tenant referencing, tenancy agreements and more: Services and Products for Landlords
For general info on our SEMINARS AND CONSULTING click here: Property Seminars, Networking Evenings and Consulting
TO READ CLIENT TESTIMONIALS – both commercial and private click here: Testimonials
BUY “SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY LETTING” click here: Buy the Book at Amazon plus anything else you fancy at Amazon.co.uk

To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to david@LettingFocus.com - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!

IF YOU HAVE A SITE WHY NOT LINK TO THIS BLOG OR TO OUR WEBSITE?
IF YOU SELL SERVICES TO LANDLORDS, YOU COULD BE A PARTNER ON OUR AFFILIATE PROGRAMME. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!

See our Twitter page: http://twitter.com/LettingFocus

Copyright of Blog: David Lawrenson 2009. This blog is updated roughly once a week usually on a Monday or Tuesday.

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Mortgage Lenders Cutting Out Brokers. Plus A Comment on Gumtree from Lawrenson of LettingFocus.com

MORTGAGE FIRMS CUT OUT MORTGAGE BROKERS
Another rather laughable consequence of the credit crunch and how UK mortgage lenders have responded to it is the way that lenders have now closed some of their best mortgage deals to brokers.
The fact is that most buy to let mortgages have hitherto been arranged mostly through mortgage brokers. This might seem strange in itself as volumes now match the numbers of first time buyer mortgages taken out. In other words, buy to let ought to by now be a core part of many banks and building societies business.
But go into any high street branch or ring one of their dark satanic call centres and ask about a buy to let mortgage and then ask them a simple question, for example “What is a tenancy deposit scheme?” and you will draw a complete blank along the lines of “Sorry, Computer says No”
Try it, its fun!
The fact is that most bank and building society staff have not got a clue about buy to let. So it will be interesting to see whether they now try to completely cut the mortgage broker out of the buy to let arena.
Unless they massively improve the training of their staff and the quality of the info they provide directly, they will be on to a loser if they do! And if I were a broker I would not forget any bank or building society that messes them around now when the good times roll again.

HOW GOOD IS GUM TREE?
Gumtree is a popular free site where landlords can directly advertise property to let for no charge without having to go through an agent.
OK, you need to update your ad every day to stay top of the list so would-be tenants can find you but hey, nothing is without cost.
Gumtree is very strong in London and I understand it also works in Manchester quite well, though it is a bit weak (or even non existent) in one or two other spots where I have property.
I’m telling you all this because I have been marketing one of my properties on it recently and have got a high level of response - and much better in terms of numbers than I’m getting from some of the other “only available to letting agencies portals”
But anecdotally I often hear that the sites that are only available to agents DO tend to get tenants who are able to pay a higher rent. Maybe that is a function of the demographic of tenants and the success of Rightmove’s and other portals branding. I’m not sure.
The facts often seem to be that a good letting agent will be able to get a higher rent than you can doing it yourself & often more than covering your fee to them -which should be no more than 8% on a 12 month tenancy term by the way.
But back to Gumtree and the like….If you are letting directly using one of these free to landlord sites, you’ll come up against the Great British Public (well if you are in London, the would-be tenants won't actually be from Britain, but the same “people based rules” still apply!)
Inevitably, you’ll get calls from people who say, “It sounds great, we just have to see it today.”
They always sound all super-keen and naturally have immaculate refs & I have often gone out of my way to do a viewing.
Now, I have learned my lesson because inevitably, these sorts of people always turn out to be the most dreadful timewasters who will want you to knock 10% off the rent and actually have very poor references indeed.
It does not matter where in the world they come from, there seems to be in all populations and peoples an equal number of people who are very pushy but very wasteful of others time.
I have found that the ones who will REALLY want to rent my places and who are straight talking and positive are always those who are polite and a bit laid back on the phone. They are not pushy but easy going and will view the property when you can fit them in.
We are taking a break for a week. Next post will be in 2 weeks time.
ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM and DAVID LAWRENSON
I’m David Lawrenson a buy to let experts from lettingfocus.com.
I’m the author of “Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let” which for the last 2 years has been the UK’s top selling property title: buy the UK's top selling property investment book
It is fully up to date with all the recent changes to tenancy deposit schemes, HMOs, licensing, capital gains taxes and it has new sections on buying property below market value. I’m an expert property speaker and a well known property blogger and I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a number of columns in the press and I can provide help for landlords
Check out where I was recently featured in the Daily Telegraph: http://propertyclub.telegraph.co.uk/Page/View/266
I also work as a consultant helping banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services and am a regular speaker at property shows.
You can read more of my blog & find details of my networking, advice, property investors networking programme at my website.What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we offer property investment mentoring because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, a developer, an agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.If a property investment is lousy – We’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad and we won’t make silly promises that you’ll become a millionaire overnight.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2008. This blog is updated once a week. Permission must be sought before using the material in the blog.

Landlord Bashing in The Press. Comment by David Lawrenson

Landlord bashing seems to be all around us right now.
The Guardian newspaper over the last two Saturdays has let its readers loose with a string of mostly anti buy to let letters - and the Metro free paper was at it too yesterday.
But landlords should take note because some of the Guardian letter writers’ comments were fair and needed making. In particular, their attack on absentee landlords who fail to maintain their properties and let tenants dump rubbish outside, thus destroying the look of a community was very valid.
However, the fact is that this type of landlord will not survive in the long term because tenants will rightly shun properties that are substandard and which frankly, look a mess.
Still, these kinds of concerns are the legitimate concerns of communities and the landlord community should take note.

Jealousy of Successful Property Investors
That said a lot of the anti- landlord culture is of course fuelled by some jealousy of the big capital gains some forward thinking landlords made in the last 10 years – or more specifically of those smart landlord / investors who bought in the right places and the right kind of property.
Not all did and some will have made losses! And of course, the press love to highlight the landlords who made a mess of it.
Of course, the big rises in house prices has been driven by the huge drop in borrowing costs between 1997 and 2004 and by large scale immigration (which has also massively fuelled the available tenant market).
And its worth noting, as the Abbey and the A&L showed in previous surveys last year, that despite high house prices, there are in fact millions of people who could afford to buy but actually choose to rent. Their choice to rent simply reflects the hire and fire work culture that exists today – they may need to move fast to find work. Renting gives them that option.

Immigration and Low Interest Rates - a One Off Event?
Both the immigration and low interest rates factors are potentially “one off” events and landlords are having it harder now - with net yields of 4% (about 2% below the best mortgage rate) being the norm – and yields are much less in many parts of the north where there is a huge oversupply of flats.
In conclusion, it is a shame that much of the stuff in the press on the buy to let issue has been misleading and landlords and their representative organisations need to respond positively and put the other side of the argument and explain the good that many landlords do.
I hope this is done forcefully – and fast.

Landlord Associations
Also, it would be good if more landlords became members of landlords associations – the percentage of landlords who are members is woeful and continually surprises me.
And we also need the various landlords associations to speak with one voice as soon as possible.

ABOUT LETTINGFOCUS.COM

LettingFocus.com is the home of landlord information. Hello, I’m David Lawrenson.
I have been a landlord and property investor myself for over 25 years and am author of “Successful Property Letting” – which has been the UK’s top selling property and buy to let book for the last 3 years.
We help landlords and property investors make money in property by coaching them in ways that work, which are ethical and which involve minimal risk to the investor.
We pride ourselves on giving independent unbiased buy to let advice on a one to one mentoring and coaching basis as well as through occasional group seminars.
Unfortunately, in the UK today, property advice in the UK is still largely unregulated and what counts as “good advice” is too often more about making the promoter money than giving useful information to the investor.
With no links to property firms, developers or bridging loan providers we can advise on where and what type of property to buy for investment and when to buy it.
We also show you how to manage tenants properly.
We also do consultancy for banks, local authorities and social housing providers – helping them with their landlord facing or buy to let product strategies. We also write for property websites and are regularly quoted by the media.

AT OUR WEBSITE LETTINGFOCUS.COM:

THE HOME PAGE OF THIS BLOG click here: Blog
THE HOME PAGE OF OUR MAIN SITE click here: LettingFocus Home Page
ONE TO ONE PRIVATE CONSULTANCY click here: Property Mentoring
NEXT SEMINAR AND NETWORKING EVENT for Landlords and Property Investors:
Next Property Investment Seminar and Networking Event
We have OFFERS on a range of services and products for landlords too; click here including landlords insurance, tenant referencing, tenancy agreements and more: Services and Products for Landlords
For general info on our SEMINARS AND CONSULTING click here: Property Seminars, Networking Evenings and Consulting
TO READ CLIENT TESTIMONIALS – both commercial and private click here: Testimonials
BUY “SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY LETTING” click here: Buy the Book at Amazon plus anything else you fancy at Amazon.co.uk

To JOIN our Free QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER simply send an email to david@LettingFocus.com - Please note we WILL NOT send spam or sell our mailing list to advertisers!

IF YOU HAVE A SITE WHY NOT LINK TO THIS BLOG OR OUR WEBSITE?
SELLING SERVICES TO LANDLORDS – YOU COULD BE A PARTNER ON OUR AFFILIATE PROGRAMME. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!

See our Twitter page: http://twitter.com/LettingFocus

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