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Marketing your rental property privately
How to market your flat or house successfully without using an agent
Why do people use agents? For lots of very good reasons! Firstly, if you are not based locally to your property then you are well advised to use a letting agent and if you live abroad it's impossible. If you do live locally letting it yourselfIt may seem like an easy job, until you've rushed round to the flat a couple of times just to find that the viewing booked for 5 o'clock have decided to not bother to turn up without letting you know.
Also, dodgy tenants usually (but not always!) tend to avoid agents, because of the stringent referencing procedures they use. An agent will make a life a whole lot easier for you by dealing with all the paperwork, which under this government has tended to increase. At the top end of the market you probably have no choice, since premium tenants are not going to waste their time scouring through pages and pages of to let ads.
I don't care about the problems, I'm going to save money by letting myself...
Of course all those benefits you get by using a professional letting agent don't come cheap – anything between 5% and 15% of the gross annual rent, paid up front.
As long as you do it right you certainly can let your own property successfully. Before advertising, the first thing to decide is whether your property could be considered down-market, mid-market or up-market. This will affect WHERE you advertise. Let's say that you're marketing your rather smart two bedroom flat for £900.00 pcm in an area where usually most two bedroom flats go for around £700.00 pcm. This will mean that you will need to get to the more discerning tenants who can afford to pay for a better style of flat. So in this instance you would be best advised to advertise with one of the services which will place your private ad on to websites like Rightmove and Primelocation. Such companies tend to charge around £50.00 and upwards for this service. The main reason for needing to use this option is because slightly more up market tenants will usually look on these kind of sites rather than in their local paper.
If however you're marketing your two bedroom flat for £700.00 pcm in an area wheretwo bedroom flats tend to cost between £650.00 and £900.00 pcm then you can effectively use free ad sites like Gumtree and Letalife.
If your property is close to a university or hospital then get in touch with the accommodation officer and see if they'll be happy to list it for free – it can be a very effective way of marketing.
However you market your property make sure that it's READY to market. Tenants will be easily put off by dirty work surface, smell of pets, rubbish outside the property or in the communal areas etc. Remember that tenants are not like purchasers – it's no good telling them that the place has bags of potential even though it looks like a dump at the moment!
But what about the danger of dodgy tenants?
As I mentioned earlier, when you advertise privately you are more vulnerable to getting dodgy tenants. The best way to minimise this risk is simply to take out Landlord Rent Guarantee & Legal Expenses Insurance. Typically with these policies you pay a relatively small annual premium and the insurer will guarantee your rent up to as much as £2500.00 pcm, plus you will have insurance for legal expenses.
What's more, these companies always specify that the tenants must be referenced fully before they can be accepted – this in itself can put off some potentially rogue tenants. However, remember that any tenant can run into financial difficulties so it really is advisable to protect your rent in this way, particularly if you are new to being a landlord.
