Author Archives: Amer

7 questions to ask before purchasing property management software

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A huge issue for professional landlords as they grow their portfolio is staying organised. I believe that an essential step for serious landlords is to invest in property management software.

The problem is that many landlords fail to ask the right questions before purchasing their software.

Becoming a serious investor brings new problems you won’t have experienced before. The answers are provided by clever software. The next challenge is to pick the right solution. Property Portfolio Software‘s products are specifically designed to handle the major challenges faced by landlords.

Landlords should ask the following 7 questions:

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HMO and Multi-Let Investors – Be Careful!

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An increasingly popular way to boost property cash flow with the current financial market turmoil is to venture in to Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) or general multi-lets. In fact, I wouldn’t be too far wrong if I was to say that unless you had properties with a low debt to equity ratio, then this is probably the only way you are going to generate any decent cash flow.

What is going to generate you the greater cash flow? A three bedroom house let out at £595 per month, or the same house split in to four rooms, with each one being let out for £260 per month, thus generating monthly income of over £1,000!

However, as an increasing number of investors start to plunge into this market, you would be wise to take note and not to put all your eggs in to this one basket!

Will we see another apartment style plunge in coming years?
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Why no demo property management software download?

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We sometimes (very rarely now) get asked the question ‘why don’t you have a trial download of your property management software solutions available?‘

A very good question.

The fact of the matter is that for almost a whole year we allowed our Property Portfolio Software website visitors to download a fully functional 30 day trial version of both our property management software solutions.

Although we were getting a healthy number of download requests, we found that almost 90% of those that requested a download never actually bothered to trial the software. We found this out after running an expensive telemarketing campaign.

In other words, they were not really motivated enough to actually take some time out to test drive our property management software solutions.

Of those who did trial the software, we found that most went on to purchase the software.

We also found that most of our sales came from people who never even bothered trialling the software!

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Landlords: Crack the credit crunch and maintain positive cash flow

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The number one issue currently facing professional property investors is cash flow – and there are five things they can do to improve it by cracking the credit crunch.

The credit crunch and downturn in the property market is currently having a big impact on landlords.It has prevented many landlords from completing or starting property investment deals as they can no longer secure the finance. The credit crunch has therefore knocked the cash flow for many landlords.

My top five tips for cracking the crunch are:

1. Don’t fall into the dreaded variable rate: If you are on a fixed, discounted or tracker rate mortgage that has tie-ins then always make sure you are aware of the expiry dates. Setting up a reminder system to notify you of when your fixed rates expire will help to avoid unnecessary high repayments by falling on to the variable rate.

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Five top tips for better tenant management

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People in the property business should realise that their tenants are the most important people they deal with, as they are their customers. Looking after tenants correctly determines the cash flow landlords generate from their properties.

Failure to manage tenants correctly will most likely result in the landlord losing money, so it’s vital to remember some essential rules to ensure tenants are paying full market rent every time.

My top five tips for landlords are:

1. Show your tenants that you are a professional landlord: This seems obvious but tenants fear the ‘landlord from hell’. Don’t fall into this category by not addressing property problems immediately, or raising rents without adequate notice. There is nothing better to demonstrate that you are a serious and well organised landlord than providing new tenants with a welcome pack. This will show you have nothing to hide and will contain essential information about the property, plus a question and answer section.

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Earn £££’s by Referring Our Property Management Software Solutions

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It’s always a great feeling when customers and other webmasters email you to say how great they believe our property management software solutions are and that they would like to start promoting them to other landlords and investors.

In order to cater for the growing number these enquiries, we have now implemented our Property Portfolio Software – Affiliate Programme through which we have tried to incentivise our customers and other webmasters to pro-actively promote our software by offering generous commissions.

For example if you refer our Landlords Property Manager – Regular solution, you will earn £36.75 in commission. If you refer our Landlords Property Manager – Professional solution, you can earn a whopping £61.75 in commission! All this by just sending the customer to our site with your unique affiliate tracking code.

It takes less than a couple for minutes to join our affiliate programme. To learn more and start earning those affiliate commissions click the link.

Minimising Your Property Management Costs

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As I identified in my blog on 3rd July, the number one issue now facing landlords is cash flow. It is essential that as landlords we try and keep each of our properties in positive cash flow where ever possible.

Ask yourself “how much money am I making from my portfolio?” What does this break down into with regards to individual properties?

Now ask yourself “how much money am I losing?” Hopefully the answer to this last question is NONE!

But what if you find you’re losing money? What simple steps can you take to eliminate this loss?

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Number One Priority for Landlords is now Property Cash flow

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Gosh, how the property market has changed and continues to change rapidly!

As you will be well aware, the credit crunch has and continues to have a sever impact on the property market. It has already caused:

  • Thousands of mortgage lenders to withdraw their products or dramatically increase the lending criteria
  • The number of house sales to dramatically decline month on month and year on year
  • House builders share prices going into free fall and offices being closed
  • House prices falling at the fastest rate in years

What about existing landlords?

Most of the press seems to focus on those who are trying to buy property, but what about those existing landlords who already own property? How are they fairing with the current turmoil?

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Get your tenants to pay on time, all the time!

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As landlords, one of the biggest worries we have is a tenant defaulting on payments (the other being that the tenant trashes the property)!

To make sure there is less likelihood of a tenant missing their rental payment, make sure you do the following two things:

a. Set-up a standing order so the rent is paid directly into your bank account
b. Make sure the standing order is on the same day, or the day after the tenant gets paid from their place of work

Point b. is crucial and you should always seriously consider changing the tenant’s payment date to the same day they get their salary paid.

This means that if the tenancy agreement runs from the 14th of the month and they get paid on the 29th of every month, make sure they are paying on the 29th of every month. You can request that they pay for the 14th to the 29th upfront and then start the standing order for the 29th of every month.

By doing this you know that your rental income is being paid on the day when they are likely to have the greatest amount of funds in their account.

This, of course, means that as a landlord you have a greater chance of getting your rental income, even if the tenant starts to experience some financial difficulties.

Are you the Landlord From Hell?

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As landlords, our worst nightmare is the Tenant From Hell.

The Tenant From Hell knows the system backwards and uses this knowledge to live rent-free in your property.

Just as much as we fear the Tenant From Hell, tenants fear the Landlord From Hell as much as we fear the Tenant From Hell. The Landlord From Hell never addresses property problems, raises rents without notice and can never be contacted when needed.

Remember: Property is a ‘people‘ business and there is nobody more important to your property business than your tenant!

So how do you show your tenants that you are not the Landlord From Hell?

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