Seventy percent of landlords think fees of around 11% for renewing properties on a let only basis are unfair. Many letting agencies still charge these kinds of fees and landlords seem fairly united in the idea that it is not any kind of reflection of the amount of work the letting agency has to put in.

The problem seems to be fairly confined to London and the South East, other regions tend not to have these fees which only emphasise the unfairness. Presumably they would not claim that the work that goes into renewing a property in London is anymore than in say, Manchester. That would just be ludicrous.

The National Landlord Association (NLA) released two statements regarding this issue, the first is directed at landlords themselves. John Socha the vice chairman of the NLA had this to say

“ Landlords get no added value from letting agents on ‘let only’ deals once a tenant has been secured. Why should they have to pick up the tab just to keep the same tenants?
It is crucial landlords check the small print of all contracts before they sign on the dotted line. Any clauses which cause concern should be negotiated out of the contract.”
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We seem to be in very interesting times for landlords. Some people give an impression of all round doom and gloom but actually recent findings released by leading specialist market research agency, BDRC show two very distinct camps.

The BDRC came about in 2006 and its function is to canvas the opinions and expectations of Britain’s landlords. They do this by surveying a control group of 500 landlords every quarter. In the last quarter of 2008 their survey uncovered a major split in the fortunes and attitudes of the two different types of landlords operating in Britain.

The report, for the first time, distinguishes between what it calls the amateur landlord market and the professional ones. It puts anyone with fewer than five properties in the former category. The report states that these landlords are struggling in the financial climate with seven percent saying they are making a loss at the moment.
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It is a sad fact that many people are currently really feeling the pressure financially. There can be little doubt that many people are finding it difficult to pay the rent or mortgage on their home.It is not pleasant but as a professional landlord you will sometimes have to evict people. No-one wants to have to do it but the truth is if you don’t you may soon join them in financial dire straits. But what happens when they won’t go? Stephen Parry of Landlord Assist said "There has been a marked increase in the number of people being repossessed and then re-entering their former properties as squatters” This is clearly not good news for us as landlords. Obviously as a human being we often have a huge amount of sympathy for these tenants, especially those that have previously been good payers but have fallen on hard times. As business people though we cannot afford to have our properties filled with non paying tenants. It is to be noted that most squatters are pretty savvy about knowing their rights these days, it is paramount that you know yours. Before you attempt to evict any squatters you need to thoroughly research the law and make sure you do everything by the book. Continue reading →

Recessions have some of the most unexpected effects. No two are the same.

As I have discussed on here before the biggest problem facing the rental market at the moment is the influx of people who never really wanted to be landlords in the first place.

Anyone who ever watched Sarah Beeny’s Property Ladder or any one of a number of similar shows will have seen that most people who go into the property development market want to fix the place up and make a quick sale for a fast buck.

Only a few choose to move into the highly specialised field of letting the property out.

This has changed recently though, with people being caught out by the sudden drop in house prices and then deciding to rent their properties. As you can imagine this has flooded the rental market somewhat and the law of supply and demand dictates that this in turn has forced rents down. Continue reading →

Lots of people being forced into the rental market for the first time by the current financial crisis are discovering something the rest of us have known for a while; the inventory is the key to any dispute.

What is on the inventory is written in stone. It cuts both ways of course. Tenants can argue that damage to furnishing, walls or carpets was there before they moved in but if it is not listed on the inventory then they have no chance of a successful complaint.

Landlords can try to claim an expensive vase went missing when the tenant departed but if it has been left off the inventory then they can forget it.
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The Financial Times published an article last week on the fact that buy to let mortgages are consistently bucking the trend of falling interest rates. This is having an adverse affect on people’s ability to jump back into the market.

Even though the price of property has dropped temptingly low some landlords are being forced to shelve their investment plans because of still crippling interest rates in this sector.

The Times quotes figures of 6.3 % on the average two year fixed term by to let mortgage.
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As we enter a time of year that can be very fraught even in the best of economic circumstances, it seems that landlords disagree over the effect the recession is having on their property business prospects.

I don’t think anyone would deny that times are tough.

It seems that in some parts of the country tenants are proving very difficult to find. Given the time of year many landlords worry that if they have a property that is standing empty now it could easily remain that way for some time into 2009.

And it is true that the ‘time served’ landlords are facing heavy competition from people who have had the business forced upon them when they are unable to sell their extra property. And there are properties from the abandoned sales market flooding the sector.

Despite all this some landlords seem to think that it is not all doom and gloom. One landlord on a popular forum is quoted as saying the credit crunch is the best thing that ever happened to time served landlords. Continue reading →

Everybody is certainly feeling the squeeze out there in the market at the moment and landlords are not immune.

In some grim news from the fund manager Managing Partners Limited (MPL) it seems there are a couple of new statistics of interest to us, and neither of them are very up lifting. In the last 18 months repossessions per day in the buy to let sector have doubled.

Coupled with the news that in the last year buy to let repossessions are up by 302 percent it is tempting to feel a little despondent. MPL estimate that around five properties belonging to landlords were repossessed a day in January.

Jeremy Leach, the managing director of MPL was hardly encouraging either when he stated
“The number of properties belonging to landlords that are re possessed is only going to rise. Mortgage rates have been increasing and deals have been hard to come by. That coupled with falling property prices has meant that more landlords have been finding it difficult to make their payments.” Continue reading →

Halifax Landlord Insurance has just completed a report that lets us in on the secret of how most landlords think. It makes for very interesting reading.

Some things I don’t consider to be much of a shock.

The news that most landlords (77%) prefer to let their property to a female tenant did not surprise me. Rightly or wrongly, I think this fits with the general population’s stereotypical notion that the female sex is less reckless and perhaps a little more tidy.

It is also not a huge shock that most of us prefer our tenants to be of a certain maturity.  Sixty seven percent of us would prefer our tenants to be over the age of 25.

Not that we have anything against youth, I am sure, but we were all young once and that is probably the problem. Continue reading →

There are a lot of people out there who literally fear anything going wrong with their property because they have such grave concerns about the practices of some tradesmen. This is very understandable in the general population as they have little to do with tradesmen on a daily basis and have no idea who to trust.

I was a little surprised to find out that landlords suffer from the same fears. According to a survey commissioned by eGenie.co.uk 75% of landlords delay repairs to their properties because they fear over charging by the people they hire. That is an awfully high figure.

According to Tim Meyer UK manager of eGenie.co.uk “It is understandable people feel scared about having shoddy work or getting ripped off, particularly when money is tight”. In normal circumstances I would agree with Mr Meyer but as professional landlords I think we are in a unique position to develop a set of trustworthy contacts that can help us out in these situations. Continue reading →