How do you secure good professional tenants?

Just how do you secure good, professional tenants? Well according to the tenants themselves here are the five most important aspects that they take into account when looking for a property to rent:

Reasonable rent – This is the number one factor, nobody wants to feel that they are being ripped off. Always remember that the ‘real’ profit from an investment property comes from capital growth and not rental income. It is vital to ensure that your property remains rented at all times, otherwise you will be paying a mortgage on an empty property. With this in mind, many landlords will actually undercut other properties in order to ensure renting their own.

Unfurnished or minimum of furnishings – Most tenants will bring their own furniture and will only require the minimum to already be in the property (the exception to this is a corporate let). Furniture that is personal to a tenant will make the property feel more like home, white goods such as Fridge, washing machine and dishwasher are the exception to this, and the property should be fully fitted with good quality appliances.

Plain decoration – Not everyone likes fancy wallpaper and fussy curtains so keep the decoration simple. Painted walls rather than papered walls are far preferable. Laminate flooring is cheap, clean, looks great and is more difficult to damage than carpet (think of dinner parties and red wine). Choose neutral paint colours, most furniture will fit with this.

Clean, clean, clean – Absolutely essential! The property should be spotless, as a grubby property will encourage people to treat it the same way and a dirty property will only attract those messy graduates who were messy students.

Parking – If there isn’t any parking find out if residents permits are available and how they can be obtained, or at the very least how much the nearest car parks cost. Make this information available to prospective tenants.

The important thing is to put yourself in the tenants position. Look at your property objectively and ask yourself, is this somewhere that you would live? What would change if you were going to rent it?