LANDLORDS.  Are you attracting the Right Tenants ?

Identifying the best tenants for your properties can be a challenge.  Landlords inevitably want to let their properties as quickly as possible, minimising vacant time.  But signing the wrong tenants can be extremely costly, time consuming and stressful to remove.

Letting agent fees can also be excessive which if you have a high turnover of tenants (every 6-12 months), significantly reduces property returns.  This leads a number of landlords to adopt a “DIY” approach using local advertisingto reduce costs, but is this a false economy?

Once you gain a reliable long-term tenant within a property, it reduces the vast majority of issues faced by property investors. Whilst a tenant’s personal circumstances can always change leading to unexpected problems, minimising the risks can make significant difference.  So how can you attract the best tenants, quickly, whilst minimising costs?

In our experience working with local Landlords, there are a five key steps to attract and identify the right tenants, including;

• Advertise your Property on Rightmove / Zoopla.Attracting the widest possible list of tenants currently looking for properties in your area, enables you to select the best tenant.

• High Quality Photographs.The more eye catching your listing, the more enquiries will be received. Even if you only want to include a couple of Photos, make sure they stand-out.

• Pre-Viewing Questionnaire.  Agree a standard list of questions to ask all prospective tenants, pre-screening their suitability.  Such as the number of tenants, current job / employment details, Pets, smokers, tenancy requirements (short/long term), etc.

• Block Viewings.   Arranging a few viewings within a couple of hour window can help to minimise time and identify multiple interested parties to choose from.

• Leverage intermediary. When using an agent (some form of agent will be required to list on Rightmove / Zoopla), use them as a buffer between yourself (the Landlord) and prospective tenants to help select the most appropriate tenant whilst keep others in reserve should they fail tenancy checks.

Once you have selected the most appropriate tenant to meet your needs, use a comprehensive and proven tenant vetting service to validate their information before proceeding.  Jump-Pad recommend using a service that also offers Rent Guarantees, even if you decide not to use this insurance, it shows a 3^rd party would be prepared to insure against them defaulting based on their referencing checks

To minimise Landlord costs, Jump-Pad offer two highly competitive services.  For Landlords who want to control the process (typically advertise themselves), they can self-list on our portal enabling advertising across Rightmove and Zoopla, creating property details and adding photographs.

For Landlords looking to outsource Jump-Pad offer a highly competitive “Tenant Find” Service (full property management available), for a significantly lower fee than typical high street agents.

We believe Jump-Pad offers Landlords the right balance between high quality, local customer service and out-of-hours support, with extremely competitive pricing.  But don’t take our word for it, follow this Link to read our recent Landlord reviews.