Landlord Help – how to save you lots of money?

LandlordLettings

Is it worth Landlords doing a bit of DIY to save money?

These days management companies or estate agents charge about 10-12% of the rental fee per month. So if you set your rent at £1000 PCM, you pay out £1,200 per year - is this value for money? Here are a few things they do which I think you can do yourself saving lots of money - any more suggestions welcomed?

1. Rental Assessment

Check out rightmove or other property websites for rental prices in your area, or consider other sites like the London rents map

2. Online Advertising

Now days it's much easier to get advertised on property portals, sometimes for free, see - letpropertyrentproperty.co.uk, housefinderuk.com, landlordlet.com, virtualletz.com etc

3. Viewings

So long as a good filter is in place, i.e. the right questions asked prior to a viewing - do you take DSS yes or no, smokers, rental fee range, when property is available etc, then this should help identify the type of person you are after and therefore limiting viewings to suitable applicants

4. Credit Checks

Tenants can get their own credit checks for free (see Experian) but some websites offer to do this for a much smaller cost than you would normally pay using traditional methods.

5. FREE Tenancy Agreement

There are lots of sites that offer these for free or offer to make amendments for a small fee of about £5 onwards.

I welcome any more suggestions on saving Landlords money?

:wave:

clutton_2

new landlords will not know the true worth of a good agent until you get a bad tenant who stops paying rent and needs to be evicted...

a good agent is worth their weight in gold in such circumstances..

a "professional scam" tenant will get their own experian credit checks and doctor them for your benefit and you will never know.....

conducting viewings are only 10% about offering information - much more about getting information from the prospective tenant without them realising you are checking them out....

"free" tenancy agreements... how do you know who has written it and how legal it is ?

how can landlords save money - join national landlords association (joining fee is tax deductible) and get all the best legal advice you need plus all the correct documentation and advice and access to their free legal help line... plus no end of discounts on products and services

why would you want to go into a business that is covered by over 100 Statutes and REgs and try to DIY it on the cheap.....

tenants from hell can cost you thousands...

tbs624

Cynically, that original post looks mighty like a "plug post" for a number of rental websites wanting to boost their market share...........

G_M

OK so it's a moneysaving site so a valid question.

Except.

If you need to ask the question then you lack experience/knowledge as a landlord.

And if you lack knowledge, you should NOT be trying to DIY, which will get you into trouble and cost you more than if you'd paid an experienced, trustworthy professional to act on your behalf.

PROFESSIONAL_LANDLORD

clutton wrote: »

a "professional scam" tenant will get their own experian credit checks and doctor them for your benefit and you will never know.....

You would have to be quite stoopid to fall for that one , another is the previous LLs mobile tel no:

neverdespairgirl

Go forth and spam no more........