Land Lords and Maintenance

thescouselander

I'd like to ask the many landlords who frequent this forum a question - why is it so many of you neglect to maintain your properties.

The reason I as is that I've moved to an area with quite a few BTL properties and it is really easy to tell which ones are rented just by looking at the condition of the outside. I'm not just talking about tatty gardens either - many places have serious faults that are beginning to damage the fabric of the building. Leaking gutters and poor paintwork being just two examples.

So what's going on here? Isn't this approach just going to lower the price the landlord can get for the property when the come to sell up? I know in our own case we simply refused to even look at anything that was ex rental.

Prothet_of_Doom

It's called taking a short term profit at risk of a long term loss. Of course it is better long term to look after your asset.

Stupid thing is that within reason, the HMRC will allow repairs as business costs and see them as tax deductable.

Icey77

I'm not sure you'll get anyone on here holding their hands up and admitting to being a scum landlord! It's more likely that the posters on here are the exact opposite in that they keep their properties in good order as much as they can.

It's basic MSE really to maintain your asset to ensure the best possible return from it!

chucky

thescouselander wrote: »

I'd like to ask the many landlords who frequent this forum a question - why is it so many of you neglect to maintain your properties.

The reason I as is that I've moved to an area with quite a few BTL properties and it is really easy to tell which ones are rented just by looking at the condition of the outside. I'm not just talking about tatty gardens either - many places have serious faults that are beginning to damage the fabric of the building. Leaking gutters and poor paintwork being just two examples.

So what's going on here? Isn't this approach just going to lower the price the landlord can get for the property when the come to sell up? I know in our own case we simply refused to even look at anything that was ex rental.

How do you know the landlords/BTL investors on this forum live in the area you have recently moved to?

Generali

It's something I've noticed too.

Our last house could have earned the Landlord considerably more in rent at he spent a few grand on tarting the place up. Still it mean I got to live in a nice house on the cheap.

Oh well, I'm buying a place as soon as we find somewhere we like. Actually I looked at an ex-rental but it was a dump and overpriced.

thescouselander

chucky wrote: »

How do you know the landlords/BTL investors on this forum live in the area you have recently moved to?

I'm not saying there are any - I'm just looking for an insight from people within the BTL community. When I referred to "you" I was talking about landlords as a group rather than specific individuals.

chewmylegoff

I've lived in a couple of places which were pretty run down. The first was a student let - a terraced house in Leyton in East London which probably wouldn't have yielded much more even if it was done up nicely because of the area it was in. The second was a three bed flat in Clapham and they could have nearly doubled the rent from what we paid which was about £1,200pcm by refurbishing which would have only cost £20-30k in total as it only needed a face lift and a new kitchen and bathroom. I can only speculate as to why, but could be because the landlord did not have a spare £20-30k and was already mortgaged to the limit so couldn't borrow more.

Apart from that I've rented several other properties which were in decent condition and were properly looked after.

I expect some LLs are unaware because their tenants haven't reported problems and/or their agents are incompetent. Others will be operating a slum landlord strategy whereby they don't want to do any maintenance because they are targeting the bottom end of the market. Others will just be stupid/incompetent.

THE_MASKED_TURNIP

Don't know what area you speak off however the vast majority of BTL's in our area, ours included of course, are highly maintained and kept. Personally I don't bother about the maintenance of the garden however I do write it in at the bottom of the lease that its the tenants responsibility to keep and they will be charged upon exiting any costs to restore it.

Kennyboy66

thescouselander wrote: »

I'd like to ask the many landlords who frequent this forum a question - why is it so many of you neglect to maintain your properties.

Many of the landlords on this forum have openly boasted in the past about how little they spend on maintenance. I suspect from knowing the market in student areas in northern cities is that they will spend some money upfront when buying a BTL, but after that they will do the bare minimum. It's not helped by some tenants. I personally would advise any first time buyer to avoid areas where BTL is dominant, as the area just seems to get dragged down.

michaels

Or could it be like any other business they look at return on investment and in some cases it doesn't make sense. If every rented property was top notch it would reduce the choice for those looking for cheap and cheerful adn would also potentially drive down the price premium for being A1.

TheFactory

The problem is a landlord can only correct what he knows to be wrong...

If my tenants don't report a problem, I can't fix it. I only inspect once a year and if I don't hear anything inbetween I expect its all good.