Most of us learned some lessons during the last recession. Even those of us who are seasoned and experienced landlords felt the sting of the collapse and we would all be silly not to heed the warnings we were given.

It is a rare landlord indeed that can claim to have remained untouched. If it was not a huge drop in property prices at the wrong time, it was reduced opportunity for bank funding or exposure to rental arrears as tenants hit difficulties.

There is no doubt that with demand now bigger than supply for rental properties, things are looking up for landlords but most are proceeding with caution. And that is only fitting.

As Graham Kinnear, MD at Landlord Assist points out the idea of infinite property price rises has been stripped away from us.

 “Prior to the credit crunch lots of people bought in to the idea of ever increasing property values and many landlords expanded their property portfolios quickly with the assistance of excessive bank lending. However during the height of the recession many were exposed to price falls on their property, in some cases wiping out any equity they had. “

Landlords will no doubt still expand in favourable conditions but the urge to protect themselves from the inevitable down times is now much stronger. The motto seems to be full steam ahead; with caution.

The big story in our sector at the moment is the fact that demand is outstripping supply and sending rental prices soaring.

It is a fact of life that when supply of something gets low, prices get high. It is not as if enough people did not predict this day arriving. Experts have been theorizing that the supply of properties for rent was going to get dangerously low for at least 6 months now. And it appears it has come to pass.

According to the latest figures demand for rental properties is up nearly fifteen percent in August: in stark contrast properties available has dropped by fifty percent. The inevitable has happened and rental prices have risen.

Make no mistake; landlords have been on the other side of this equation and in recent times too. There was period there where rental properties were in such oversupply landlords were making a loss on renting out.

There is bound to be some profiteering as that is the nature of some humans but it is my fervent hope that most landlords, while taking advantage of the change in fortunes, play fair with their prices. Just because you can charge ridiculously high prices, genuinely does not mean you should. Not in my opinion.

My experience though is that most landlords do have a social and moral conscience. 

We have talked a bit recently about the high demand for rental properties and the fact that there is starting to be a shortage. Also that many people are choosing in uncertain times to rent instead of buy only adding to the supply and demand imbalance. Recently it seems middle class families have been looking at another solution.

Many people in larger properties have decided to take in lodgers. Apparently this is happening in numbers that have not been seen since the middle 1960’s.

It seems the demographics for people willing to take in lodgers has changed a little since then with the primary candidates now being young couples with or without children. They are choosing to open their homes to lodgers mainly in order to relieve financial distress.

While this situation seems to be a perfect partial solution to the worries of both home owners and renters it needs to be pointed out that many of these landlords are totally unaware of the responsibilities of the situation they are taking on.

I applaud people’s initiative in taking action to ease their circumstance but urge all landlords to undertake extensive research to make sure they are aware of all laws pertaining to what they are doing.

Landlords will no doubt be accused of taking advantage but personally I can see no blame for some landlords trying to recoup their losses after a very tough few years. Figures indicate that in most parts of England rental prices have risen.

But before people start jumping up and down it is timely to remember that rental prices had fallen significantly recently and this could be considered a re-adjustment to normality.

The increase is due, as it tends to be to demand. With the banks refusing many first time buyers funding and reluctantly landlords finally having sold up and got out, the increase in the number of people wanting to rent is significant.

David Brown, commercial director of LSL Property Services, had this to say this week.

“Rents are jumping up as more and more potential home buyers opt to rent. People are wary of a crash in house prices and concerned over the effect of government cuts on their own ability to meet long-term financial commitments. Additionally, many can’t get a mortgage at an affordable rate. Furthermore, the huge number of reluctant landlords we saw renting out property last year have now had the opportunity to bank their gains and sell up. That’s cut into the supply of rental accommodation.”

As usual things are very regional for landlords though. If you are in London or the South you will have seen an average rise of 3%. The other end of the spectrum is nowhere near as rosy with average 1% drops in Wales and The Midlands.

We all know why it happens. There is no getting around the fact that there is a higher percentage of rental arrears in houses rented to LHA tenants. This is particularly true now that the government subsidies are handed to the tenant instead of the landlord. But the truth is landlords are costing themselves money by refusing to rent to LHA tenants.

The fact is that 20% of the market comes from this area. This a large portion to write off as unsuitable for your needs. But how to avoid ending up with a tenant who does a runner owing you money or just becomes a colossal pain to get the rent from?

There are ways. There are precautions you can take that allow you to rent to this large section of the market and reduce your risks of having someone who does not pay.

Firstly, get a guarantor, a homeowner guarantor can really reduce the chances of rental arrears. And in the current climate with so many people being new to renting LHA a lot of people are happy to provide one, especially if you are offering decent accommodation at a decent price.

The other thing you can do is contact an agency that deals in tenant references. This will also reduce your risk.

20% is too large a chunk to ignore so most landlords need to find a way round the problem.

People are still talking about mortgages being hard to get and the bottom line is that they are. But things are improving and at this stage that is the best we can hope for.

According to trustworthy figures that number of approved mortgages and buy to let loans rose from 8.3 billion in April to 9 billion in May. An increase of 4.3%. Which is a fairly significant rise and certainly could be taken as a positive sign.

One thing that is certain though is that only the major high street banks are really in this game at the moment with the overwhelming majority of these loans coming from one of them. That is not a problem as such but we know the industry is full on into recovery when the smaller institutions get in on the act. Plus it is very good for competition and diversity. We don’t wan the big boys having it all their own way.

Luckily many think that the government’s new budget is set to stimulate this loans sector to new growth so with any luck we may start to see the spreading of these loans to other, smaller banks very soon.

If your property is not up to standard and especially if you have been warned about it on previous occasions be aware you can run out of chances.

I know most landlords pride themselves on the high standard of their accommodation; it is after all their investment as well as someone’s home. But there are always people, in any walk of life, that through laziness or greed don’t do the right thing.  For one such landlords that attitude just led to a fine.

Peterborough council has warned Asad Javaid about the state of his property but it seems he was inclined to take no notice. Despite having the repairs that needed to be carried out outlines to him in an official notice he ignored the issue until it was too late. In court he was ordered to pay £1300 by way of a fine and £315 in court costs.

Housing enforcement office Peter Bezant, told the local newspaper:

 “We are very pleased with this successful prosecution and the level of fines awarded in this case.We hope this sends a clear message out to all landlords and letting agents operating in the city about their responsibilities to maintain their properties, as well as the penalties they will face if they do not comply.”

It may not seem like a huge amount of money but considering the landlord will still need to pay out to make the repairs or risk further action it was certainly an unnecessary expense.

In something a bit different from normal I was struck this week by an article I saw outlining how unsafe your details may be with your estate agent or property manager. Apparently seven out of ten estate agents are using wireless systems that could be hacked with little effort by someone with a bit of know how.

That is quite a scary thought considering the type of information most of us willingly supply to these people.

If you want to check that your data is safe then you need to ask what kind of encryption your agent is using. Ideally you are looking for them to be running a system called WPA2. Those that are most at risk are using the very old fashioned type of encryption called WEP.

I suppose it is a matter of how paraniod you want to be but I tend to think better safe than sorry so a little pressure on your agent to upgrade their system may have benefits for both of you in the long run. No one wants to be a victim of cyber crime, or any crime for that matter and any crime that involves your business is double scary.