How to Build the Right Reputation as a Landlord
To have a good reputation as a landlord, you need to be agile and make sure that your tenants are both happy and also aware of their contractual obligations. Having a great reputation will make the job easier, as a good recommendation and good reviews go a long way to ensure future profitability.
Make sure you have the correct insurance and paperwork to be a landlord
Firstly, make sure you have the correct set up around insurance and paperwork. This means being aware of some of the legislation around renting, and making sure you have a fully comprehensive landlord’s insurance policy in place for each property you rent. If you fail to do this you may find that you could be losing a lot of money in expensive pay outs, insurances covers, and you may even need to buy new white goods for a property. Remember that no one enjoys legislation, however if you are to have ‘the book thrown at you’ so to speak, you need to make sure you’re covered.
Try and maintain a good relationship with tenants
One of the ways you get a great reputation is by tenants spreading the word of their great landlord. This may mean getting back to tenants as fast as possible around their concerns and issues, making sure repair work is done, and ensuring that all tenants know the ground rules and are trying their best to follow them. You job is not to bend over backwards to accommodate your tenants, or to a parental figure issues times for ‘lights out’, however if you encourage feedback and give a general overview of each properties demographic you can go a long way to ensuring positive feedback from tenants.
Ensure you are fair with anyone that has to do work on the property
This means several things should be done by you, as a landlord. You should try and build a relationship with a specific company or group, even a tradesperson, wherever possible. This way you may be able to save money, but more importantly you build trust in them as a business person. Continued work for someone will have them coming back, but also singing your praises as someone that pays fairly and offers work whenever possible. Conversely, if you overcharge and try to go to everyone possible for the best price for each job, you may soon find that not many trades people answer the phone…
Try to keep family out of the rental business
This point means both for renting to, and working with. Make sure that you aren’t renting to family or friends. Renting is a business decision and requires a unimpeded judgement, so you can’t be impaired by family loyalty or friendship if someone is causing too much noise to live in a shared house or can’t pay the rent on time. Similarly, your tenants will catch on to any family ties that you have, and if you are paying your sister in law to clean the house at a full priced rate they might not be happy. When working alongside family or friends it can sometimes be quite difficult to maintain professionalism – and professionalism is something that should be maintained for your rental schemes to prosper and for you to get the best reputation as a landlord.
Make sure you are documenting everything you need to be
This is an important point that needs to be made to perspective landlords – if you aren’t certain whether something is worth recording, you need to ensure you have a written record of it. This can help not only if there are any issues, but for remembering the flow of tenants, how much you are owed by whom, and even who you need to pay for repairs. You will find if you can easily recall payments and money owed, you’ll have a lot of friends as a landlord!
So if you want to build the right reputation as a fair landlord, that pulls in great perspective tenants and can build relationships with local traders to fix their properties promptly, make sure you follow the advice above. Also, remember that we can help any future landlords with great business opportunities for potential property investors. Whether you’re a first-time buyer, wanting to build your portfolio or looking for a secure way to invest we can help.