Property Portfolio Software is thrilled to announce that it has been voted the winner of two awards at the prestigious Landlord & Letting Awards gala dinner held at Birmingham’s NEC on 16th November.

Gaining the accolade of awards in both the Software and Customer Service sections, Managing Director Amer Siddiq was delighted to accept the prizes on behalf of the Company. Siddiq said: “We are absolutely thrilled to win these awards. The competition was really tough, so this accolade really is testament to the hard work and commitment of everyone at Property Portfolio Software.  This achievement has really spurred us on and we will continue to build on our expertise and deliver high quality levels of service to the sector.”

The title of Software winner was retained by Property Portfolio Software after being won 12 months ago – this year the Company deservedly achieved a second award moving from second to first place in the Customer Service category.

Oliver Romain, editor of Landlord and Buy-to-Let magazine and lead judge for the Awards commented: “The Landlord & Letting Awards are the premier nationwide private rented sector awards in the UK, and it’s great to be able to recognise and reward the best in the industry.  This year’s response was phenomenal with over 1000 entries received, so Property Portfolio Software has done brilliantly to win in two categories.”

Amer Siddiq entered the world of property investment in 1999 and quickly realised that there was no existing suitable software available to help him manage his properties.  He therefore developed his own software tool – described as the ‘Landlord’s Property Manager’ to assist landlords in becoming better organised in terms of reducing paperwork, staying up to date with legal requirements, ensuring tenants obtain the information they need and importantly, maintaining and growing a positive cash-flow.

Siddiq states: “Improving customer feedback processes and developing software functionality according to customers’ requirements are just two of the areas where Property Portfolio Software has grown and developed in the past year, resulting in our success”.

He adds: “Looking to the future, we have two new product launches planned for 2012. ‘Letting Agent Manager’ is a tool for small agencies to run their lettings business, and ‘Landlords and Letting Agent Manager’ enables the roles of both a landlord and a letting agent to be combined in a single product.  The latter is ground-breaking and unrivalled in terms of the capabilities offered to the two markets in one piece of software.  Roll on 2012!”.

To find out more about Property Portfolio Software visit the website at http://www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk

Experts are warning that although the current boom in the investor property market is pushing rents up to an all time high, the buy to let market may soon burst and annual returns for buy to let investment properties could fall quite dramatically.

All landlords know how good things are at the moment: first time buyers are really struggling to scrape together enough money for a deposit and those of us with cash to spare are cashing in on their misfortune by snapping up the properties at the cheaper end of the market. Even the banks are jumping on the buy to let bandwagon by relaxing their lending criteria for wannabe landlords, and if you take a quick look around, you will soon see that there is a lot of excellent buy to let mortgage products on offer at the moment.

However, always remember that the buy to let market is a long-term investment and it is sensible not to stretch your finances too far when buying a buy to let property. In time, the buy to let bubble will burst and rents will fall, and if interest rates rise you may see your profit margins significantly eroded.

Buy to let investment is not for everyone. It works for me and I enjoy a good income from my properties, but the key to success in the buy to let investment market is to do your homework and take into account the various costs involved, especially if you decide to use an agent to manage your properties.

With many high street lenders placing restrictive lending criteria on their mortgage products, increasing numbers of landlords are turning to less conventional forms of finance in order to take advantage of the thriving buy to let market. According to figures just released by a leading bridging finance lender, the gross lending figure is about to reach the unprecedented figure of £800 million and more than 82% of all loans made this year have been to residential property investors.

What is bridging finance and how can it help you?

Bridging loans are secured on a professional valuation of the property and unlike a traditional mortgage, there are very few background checks made on the person applying for the loan. They are typically a short-term finance solution and most loans are repaid after a few months, although they can last up to two years.

In my experience, bridging loans can be very useful, although you need to have a clear exit strategy, so if you are interested in buying a property, but cannot secure the funding in the short term, a loan of this nature can help you invest in a property when speed is of the essence. Bridging loans can also fund property purchases when substantial repairs are required prior to tenants moving in—once the work has been completed and your property is let, you can switch to a long-term mortgage.

However, although bridging loans can be very useful for landlords, it is a good idea to obtain specialist advice prior to signing on the dotted line to ensure this is the right product for you.

Things just keep getting better for landlords. Figures just released for the third quarter of the year indicate that the number of tenants seeking rental accommodation is continuing to rise and according to one buy to let lender, only 4% of landlords saw a decline in the number of tenants whereas 44% of landlords saw an increase.

But it isn’t only tenant demand that is on the up. The average rent per property has risen, particularly in rental hot spots such as London, and around 11% of landlords questioned said they have seen an increase of between 2% and 4% in rental income, which is a lot more than the average savings account!

Another interesting trend was the type of property landlords are looking to invest in. It would appear that many of us are diversifying our investment portfolios and instead of concentrating on one area, we are buying a wide range of different property types. Terraced houses are apparently the most popular, followed by flats and bungalows.

Many landlords are also starting to use social networks to promote their vacant properties, which is good news. I am a firm believer in the power of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to attract new tenants, so if you have yet to utilise this wonderful tool, you need to start waking up to the fact that more and more people are spending their waking lives surfing the net and communicating online. By failing to take advantage, you are missing out on a wonderful business opportunity.

A quick glance at the latest best-buy savings accounts will soon tell you that you may as well be saving your cash under your mattress as opposed to putting it in a traditional savings account on offer from the big high street lenders. Rates paid on savings accounts are at an all-time low, so the only way your nest egg will make money is if you think outside the box.

Investing in a buy to let property is becoming an increasingly popular way of maximising savings and as the interest in the buy to let market continues to grow in line with the number of potential tenants, more and more families are taking their savings and investing in rental property.

In years gone by, landlords were required to find a hefty deposit before they became eligible for a buy to let mortgage, but with the increasing demand for rental property, lenders are starting to relax their lending criteria and many amateur landlords are taking advantage.

Is buying a rental property a good business decision?

In the current market, investing in buy to let property is a sound economic decision and with rental yields 5-6%, you can enjoy a great return for your investment. However, becoming a landlord is not all plain sailing and, as I know to my cost, there is a lot more to consider than simply buying a property and waiting for a tenant to move in, so make sure you do your homework before ploughing all of your hard-earned savings into a rental property!

A tenant from Hell is every landlord’s worst nightmare, but when one of your tenants causes £20,000 of damage and he walks away without paying a penny, it hardly seems fair. Well, as unbelievable as it sounds, this is exactly what happened to one poor landlord after a teenager tenant trashed his property out of spite because the landlord had started eviction proceedings over unpaid rent.

We all know how difficult it can be to evict tenants, so I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that it took months of frustrating court action to finally secure an eviction notice on the property. Sadly, by that point, the tenant and his girlfriend had caused an unbelievable amount of damage throughout the property—it was so bad that the police were forced to board up the house just to make it safe.

Once he had been traced to a new address, the teenager was charged with criminal damage, but because he was not in work and therefore had no money to pay for the damage he had caused, the judge was forced to give him a community order and 300 hours of unpaid work. The Judge said he would have jailed the teenager but for his intention to join the army (his application would have been rejected with a criminal record).

The landlord expressed his disappointment at the lenient sentence: ‘I would have liked him to do some hard labour – maybe cleaning somewhere would have been appropriate.”

Let’s hope that when (if) the teenager eventually starts work, the insurers will pursue him for the cost of repairing the damage to the property

When faced with a respectable looking tenant who is keen to move in to one of your properties and has the necessary deposit, it might seem easier to skip the normal credit checks and hand over the key. After all, they look okay, so what can possibly go wrong?

Well think twice before cutting corners in your efforts to fill an empty property. You might assume somebody is a perfectly respectable pillar of the community with a decent job and enough cash to meet the monthly rent payments, but many potential tenants are not always what they appear to be.

Taking the time to run a credit and identity check on a potential tenant could save you an awful lot of grief in the long run. On average, around one in twenty tenants have CCJs against them, indicating that they have defaulted on some kind of credit payment in the not too distant past. Basic credit checks will pick up outstanding CCJs, bankruptcy or insolvency, verify a person’s identity and whether they have any aliases. Checks can also be made to verify a person’s financial standing and assess their ability to pay the rent on your property.

It is easy to forgo the credit checks and assume everything is going to be fine, but take it from me: rent arrears are a landlord’s worst nightmare. Once a tenant stops paying the rent, you will then be forced to take the necessary steps to have them evicted, and that will end up costing you a lot more than the original credit check would have!

Are you aware that Christmas is less than six weeks away? But apart from the woes of Christmas shopping to look forward to, the other main consideration for this time of year is the winter weather, and if last year is anything to go by, we could soon be plunged into a winter wonderland of sub-zero temperatures and heavy snowfall.

How can you help your tenants this winter?

Well aside from inviting them around for a slap up Christmas Dinner a la Scrooge, it is a good idea to make sure your tenants are aware of certain key bits of information relating to central heating systems and water pipes. When faced with arctic conditions, burst pipes often occur with monotonous regularity. In many cases, such issues can be avoided by turning off a water supply if a property is going to be empty for a few days over the Christmas holiday period, or alternatively, turning the thermostat up to ensure the heating keeps the pipes warm.

If the worst does happen and a pipe bursts, tenants should be aware of where the water stop tap is located to prevent further water damage. They should also be made aware of how to switch a central heating boiler off, and if a property has a gas boiler, it is also a good idea to make sure your tenants know where the gas cut-off switch is in the event of an emergency. And lastly, if you have elderly tenants, be a responsible landlord and check up on them at regular intervals if the weather turns nasty

The Government is currently discussing plans to amend the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill in Parliament, and if the amendments are approved, it could soon be illegal for squatters to move in to residential property—which is great news for landlords.

As anyone who has had the odious task of removing squatters from a property on their books knows, the current process for evicting squatters is time-consuming and expensive. I have not had the pleasure so far, but I know other landlords who have endured a great deal of grief after squatters moved into one of their vacant properties.

Under the current law, squatters are allowed to enter an unsecured property, but if the property is already occupied, or about to be, it then becomes illegal. However, because it is a civil offence rather than a criminal one, landlords have to take their case to the civil court, which is long-winded and expensive, and likely to leave them out of pocket on all fronts. And even when you do manage to get rid of your unwelcome guests, if they have trashed the property, it will end up being empty for even longer while you fix the damage.

If the Government’s amendments are passed, from early next year, squatting will become a criminal offence rather than a civil offence. At present, squatters have nothing to worry about apart from eviction and the hassle of finding somewhere else to live, but under the proposed changes, they will soon be facing a year in jail and/or a large fine, which should make the notion of squatting in a vacant property considerably less appealing!

Have you ever had tenants that drove you to the point of distraction? The landlord – tenant relationship is not always an easy one, and unless you are very lucky or an extremely easy-going individual, from time to time you will probably feel aggrieved at something one of your tenants has done.

However, as landlords, we are businessmen and women, and therefore should always treat our tenants with a high degree of professionalism, no matter what the circumstances are. Unfortunately, not all landlords are able to keep a lid on their temper, and in the case of one Scottish landlord his fiery disposition has landed him in court.

The landlord, Mr Fortune, apparently took exception to being handed a £160 bill after his tenants had a shower repaired and changed the locks without telling him. He lost his temper and threatened them with physical violence. The landlord later claimed that the tenants owed him money for unpaid rent, although they counterclaimed he had done nothing to instigate essential repairs despite repeated requests. Sadly for Mr Fortune, he was also found guilty of unlawfully operating a HMO (house of multiple occupancy) and fined a further £1,000 for operating without the correct licence.

So the moral of this story is that if you fail to act in a professional manner and don’t treat your tenants with politeness and respect, it is highly likely that your tenants will take exception to being threatened verbally and physically, and you will end up seriously out of pocket!