Offering House Sellers a chance to rent out

jessie179

Hi everyone, I am quite new to this and looked but couldnt find exactly what I was looking for.

Firstly I am married with a baby under a year. We are in rented accomodation that is average considering what 3 beds are going for now. The thing is our current place has a very small living area and access to the property is very ackward as well as struggling everyday with a very light buggy and on top of that I just registered as a childminder as well.

Problem is my place is way too small to childmind from. Our area have very few 3 bed houses available and those that are, are completely new built and the developers do not wish to rent these properties out for someone wanting to childmind in it.

What I am thinking of doing is looking at rightmove.co.uk and check all 3 beds for sale and writing a letter asking them if they are willing to rent out their property and also the fact that I want to childmind from there as well.
(1) What would you as a Landlord think should you get a letter requesting the above?
(2) Advice on how to word such a letter as well?

Sorry for long post but am desperate as right now I am working full-time from home to earn full-time salary and also looking after my daughter that is very active meaning I only really get to do most of the work at night until 3am, therefore wishing that I can resign and start full-time with childminding.

Thanks
Jessie

silvercar

Why are you checking houses for sale for landlords that will allow tenants to childmind?

You will be sending your letter to sellers who want to sell not to rent out. Even if you came across a seller who would consider a tenant if they couldn't sell, they wouldn't be looking for tenants who would have lots of kids smearing the walls.

Forget developers and sellers, try to find landlords.

Added to which you won't find the sellers through rightmove, you will only get their estate agents.

jessie179

Sorry to make it clearer because its in the area that I am currently living in I recognise where most of these houses are anyway or past most of them that have a For Sale board but alot has been up for sale for a very long time. Therefore wanna propose to them to maybe think of renting it out until the housing prices has turned around.
I would write a Dear Landlord or potential one, and drop it into the letterbox.

Hope that explains it a little better

PasturesNew

You misunderstood. Silvercar meant: you are exceedingly unlikely to find a seller who would want to rent out their house. You need to be looking for houses that are available for rent.

The housing prices might not turn around for another 5 years.

Why have you not simply looked for a 3-bed house to rent?

jessie179

Hi PasturesNew

In my first post I mentioned there are almost no 3 bed properties for rent. The 2 that I found was very expensive but we still went for it as we knew it would work for the childminding. I have been watching daily all estate agents websites, gumtree, our local town website, our newsagent and no one has 3 beds for rent. Therefore thinking of the For Sale Houses there might be a few considering renting their house to us (like you said it can take years) especially some that might have more than 1 house

silvercar

You have to consider why someone who wants to sell would be interested in renting. The only reason would be if they needed to urgently move to a new area. Any other reason and they would only be interested in selling.

Say you found a seller who would consider renting out. The sort of tenants they would want would be those who would be looking for a short term let (so they can market the property again as soon as they felt like it); those who would allow viewings of potential buyers and those who keep the house in pristine condition so they have no decorating expense when they decide to sell.

A young family, particularly one that wants to child mind from home doesn't tick any of those boxes.

Remember a landlord has to arrange a gas safety certificate, get consent from the lender, arrange the correct building insurance etc before he can consider renting out. Its not a quick decision.

Its good to think outside the box, but I can see you wasting a lot of energy for a very, very small chance of gain.

Lakey

Well jessie, I know silvercar is most probably right, but if you wrote to me with your proposal, I would be very interested.

I don't think you have anything to loose and you might just get lucky.

What area are you looking in?

Go for it is what I say...