Thanks to rising demand for rental properties, most landlords are experiencing shorter void periods between tenants, which is good news for our pockets. Of course there are always going to be times when a property is vacant for a week or so, and even though the average void period has fallen from 3.2 weeks to 2.8 weeks, there are still a few things you can do to attract new tenants and fill the gap as fast as possible.

Once you know your tenant is leaving, advertise the property in as many places as possible. The internet should be your first port of call for advertising purposes as most people search online before looking elsewhere, but it is worth advertising in the local press or college notice boards if you are marketing at students.

One of the biggest problems with having a property empty for any length of time over the summer is garden upkeep. Grass grows at an alarming rate when the weather is warm and sunny, but new tenants will be put off if they come to view and are faced with a jungle. Keep an eye on empty properties and make sure they stay clean and tidy.

Good photos are essential if you want to attract new tenants. Rental properties may be in demand, but tenants are more likely to show interest if your property looks great in the pictures. It is also a good idea to take new marketing pictures after you have given the property a good clean—it will look more attractive to potential tenants!

As anyone with a house to sell in the current market knows, it is nigh on impossible to find a buyer unless you are willing to drop your price and practically give your home away for free.  Even if you are lucky enough to find a buyer willing to pay the asking price, or something in the region of, should you require a mortgage to fund your next house purchase, then the real fun begins!

Prior to the recession it was not that difficult to get a mortgage, which is why large numbers of people were able to borrow five or six times their income and subsequently end up in massive debt. But times have changed and with the collapse of so many financial institutions, lenders are understandable leery of handing over cash unless the borrower is able to put down a substantial deposit on the loan, and even then, many lenders are still baulking.

As a result of this difficult situation, a large number of people are being forced into the rental market—either because they can’t obtain a mortgage or because they can’t sell their home and are forced to let it out. Indeed, the latest research suggests that the average first time buyer is now a comparatively old 37 years of age.

The obstacles in the way of anyone wishing to own their own home means good news for landlords since the more people in the market for rental accommodation means higher rental yields and greater profits, which is why the average rent continues to rise and the buy to let market thrives. With the deepening crisis in the Eurozone, it seems likely that mortgages will become as rare as fairy dust and landlords can expect to see a steady supply of tenants beating a path to their door.

As anyone with a house to sell in the current market knows, it is nigh on impossible to find a buyer unless you are willing to drop your price and practically give your home away for free.  Even if you are lucky enough to find a buyer willing to pay the asking price, or something in the region of, should you require a mortgage to fund your next house purchase, then the real fun begins!

Prior to the recession it was not that difficult to get a mortgage, which is why large numbers of people were able to borrow five or six times their income and subsequently end up in massive debt. But times have changed and with the collapse of so many financial institutions, lenders are understandable leery of handing over cash unless the borrower is able to put down a substantial deposit on the loan, and even then, many lenders are still baulking.

As a result of this difficult situation, a large number of people are being forced into the rental market—either because they can’t obtain a mortgage or because they can’t sell their home and are forced to let it out. Indeed, the latest research suggests that the average first time buyer is now a comparatively old 37 years of age.

The obstacles in the way of anyone wishing to own their own home means good news for landlords since the more people in the market for rental accommodation means higher rental yields and greater profits, which is why the average rent continues to rise and the buy to let market thrives. With the deepening crisis in the Eurozone, it seems likely that mortgages will become as rare as fairy dust and landlords can expect to see a steady supply of tenants beating a path to their door.

Lots of inexperienced landlords choose to pay a letting agent to manage their properties because it seems like the best option for all concerned, and if the landlord lives a long way from their property, a letting agent is usually better placed to deal with routine matters and changes of tenant. But, unfortunately, despite government promises to improve the situation, letting agents in England and Wales remain unregulated, which means there are a large number of rogue operators charging unfair fees and behaving in a less than professional manner.

Unscrupulous letting agents use all kinds of tactics to maximise profits at the expense of unwitting landlords and tenants. They often charge ridiculously high property management fees, including fees running to hundreds of pounds for simple tasks such as credit checking a tenant, and because they make more money when tenant turnover is high, they are happy to harass tenants and negotiate rent increases that are typically based on what they think a tenant is willing to pay rather than what current rental market prices are.

Many landlords put up with such practices because they are able to offset the fees charged by letting agents as a legitimate business expense, but instead of being ripped off every month if you are using a letting agency to manage your properties, consider finding another agency with a clearly advertised and unambiguous fee schedule. If landlords only choose to work with a letting agency running their business fairly and efficiently rather than one of the more unscrupulous agents currently in business, hopefully the rogue agencies will eventually be driven out of business.

Some interesting new research into buy to let property businesses has indicated that landlords with several buy to let properties are more likely to make larger profits than landlords with just one rental property. Obviously this is always going to be the case for landlords who run buy to let as their sole business, but there are also a large number of investors in the buy to let market who use buy to let to generate a secondary income whilst working as an employee elsewhere.

Why does it pay to own more than one property?

There is nothing inherently wrong with supplementing your income with profits made from letting out just one property, but if you plan on making a decent living from buy to let, it pays to have a larger property portfolio. Keeping your eggs in one basket is always a recipe for disaster and buy to let is no different from any other business venture: if you are selling a product, you would think it foolish to have only the one customer, right?

Maintaining several properties is more work, but if you experience any down periods when a property is empty between tenants, you can use the income generated from other properties to tide you over. Maintaining a larger property portfolio also helps to maximise your rental income, which in turn boosts profits from the business. Even with only two or three properties in your portfolio you will see a greater return on your investment and the research figures indicate that 38% of landlords with between five and ten properties on their books are able to make a good living from their business. This rises to a very healthy 72% of landlords with more than twenty properties in their portfolio.

In an attempt to improve living conditions in the Welsh private rented housing sector, the government has published a White Paper in advance of the new Housing Bill, which outlines a number of important legislative changes that will affect all landlords and letting agents in Wales, irrespective of how many properties they own or manage.

The changes will require that all landlords sign a mandatory housing register before they can let a property to a tenant. Landlords will also be required to pass a test to ensure they are a “fit and proper person”, although the definition of a “fit and proper person” has yet to be clarified! Once a landlord or letting agent is given appropriate accreditation, they will be able to run a property rental business in Wales.

By putting such legislation in place to protect tenants, the government clearly recognises that the private rented sector is awash with both good and bad landlords, but with the introduction of these legislative changes, it hopes to reduce the number of cases of “bad landlords” taking advantage of vulnerable people, desperate for a home.

Although I should point out that landlords are not the only ones to blame: there are plenty of dodgy letting agents operating in Wales and other parts of the UK, companies who make money from charging landlords and tenants hidden fees or adding questionable expenses to the cost of their services.

However, even though better regulation of the private rented sector is an excellent idea, there still remains a significant shortage of available rental property, and not just in Wales, which is a problem that urgently needs addressing.

Although there has been a small spike in the number of mortgage applications in the last few weeks, mostly fuelled by first time buyers rushing to take advantage of the favourable stamp duty rates before they go up in June, for the most part, the UK property market remains stagnant with very little activity.

Figures for mortgage lending in 2011 certainly back this up—lending was at its lowest for more than thirty-five years. However, unlike the rest of the housing market, the buy to let sector was the only one that actually grew last year as lenders sought to take advantage of the demand for buy to let mortgages from landlords eager to cash in on the shortfall in rental accommodation.

But despite the positive outlook for landlords hoping to make money in the current buy to let boom, it is still not easy to get financing from the high street lenders, so even though more than 72% of landlords have borrowed money on some of the properties in their portfolio, most still feel that lenders are making it prohibitively difficult to obtain new financing, which in turn is restricting growth in the buy to let sector—without money, a landlord can’t increase his portfolio.

And if the EU has its way and buy to let lending is lumped in with residential mortgages whereby eligibility for a loan is assessed on the basis of income rather than predicted rental yield, a situation described as “fundamentally misguided” by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the situation will only get worse.

When the boiler in one of your rental properties breaks down, usually in the middle of winter, it is likely to be an expensive headache you could have done without. Your tenants will be unhappy at the interruption to their central heating and hot water supply, plus you have a nice big repair bill to look forward to.

Unfortunately, boiler breakdowns are becoming an increasingly vexing problem, and not just for landlords. In the good old days, back boilers were the most common type of boiler and as long as they were serviced regularly, they went rarely went wrong, but even if they DID go wrong, the repair costs were minimal. However, times have changed and these days we are positively encouraged to invest in new combination and condensing boilers when the time comes to retire old faithful in the kitchen.

The new style of condensing and combination boilers are supposed to be more reliable and efficient, but based on breakdown statistics, this is apparently not the case, and because of this an increasing number of people, including many letting agents in the UK, are calling for the government to force manufacturers to provide 10-year guarantees on their boilers.

I know from my own experience how unreliable a modern boiler can be—I was forced to invest in a new boiler a few years ago and within two years it had broken down more times than I care to mention and cost me a fortune in repairs. In the end, I replaced it with another new one, which was an expense I didn’t exactly need at the time. Imagine if the same thing happened in several of your rental properties: your profits would be annihilated overnight! So if you have had a bad experience with one particular boiler manufacturer, spread the word and warn other landlords.

With the start of the London Olympic Games just a few short weeks away, landlords with buy to let in the London area are frantically marketing their properties in the hope of attracting short-term tenants for the summer, and with some properties advertised at more than £6k per week, the potential for raking in a huge profit is massive. But what about those properties where tenants are already in residence?

Sadly the lure of a quick profit is proving too much to ignore for some unscrupulous private landlords. Instead of treating their existing tenants fairly, these landlords are serving hurried eviction notices telling tenants to pack their bags and get out or face having their rents increased to unaffordable levels.

Can private landlords do this?

Evicting tenants without giving them sufficient notice is illegal, so the answer is a resounding “no”. It is also illegal to harass a tenant in order to provoke them into leaving a property and should a landlord be found guilty of such offences, they face prosecution and a custodial sentence at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

So instead of being seduced by short-term profits, look at the bigger picture and recognise the benefits of keeping reliable long-term tenants who pay their rent on time and don’t trash the place. It might seem like easy money to let your flat or house for the duration of the Olympics, but when the Games are over and everyone has gone home, you may find it impossible to find new tenants as a glut of rental properties comes on to the open market once again.

The rising demand for rental accommodation combined with a cap on benefits is slowly turning parts of London into a third world ghetto. According to a story I read in the Guardian, greedy landlords are exploiting the demand for accommodation and renting out illegally converted sheds and outhouses, very often to illegal immigrants, and it is not unusual for landlords to charge hundreds of pounds per week for a section of floor space in an overcrowded house with too few bathrooms, no fire alarms, dodgy wiring, and with resident rats and cockroaches to boot.

Can you imagine living in a converted shed with no hot water or insulation, in the middle of winter? No, nor can I, but increasing numbers of tenants are being forced into renting rooms and hastily converted outbuildings to avoid living on the streets and council planning enforcement inspectors are getting used to finding tenants living in overcrowded conditions or spaces so small even your dog would object.

It might seem difficult to understand why people would choose to live under such conditions, but when all you can afford is a mattress on the floor of some squalid house in one of the cheaper boroughs of London, choice probably doesn’t come into it. But on the other side of the coin are the landlords who trade in human misery, cashing in on the plight of so many vulnerable and desperate people, many of whom are in no position to make complaints about their living conditions.

So if you are picturing a 19th century slum, you’re in the right era, but sadly this unhappy state of affairs is unlikely to improve any time soon.