Landlord handbook
A simple, handy guide to letting your property in Bradford.
This guide includes:
- Decide your target market
- Choose your letting agent
- Value your property
- Your legal responsibilities
- Things to do before you let
- What happens when a tenant moves in?
- Managing the tenancy
- Renewing or ending the tenancy
1. Decide your target market
So, you have a Bradford property to let. Deciding who your ideal tenant will be can help create an easier, quicker and more profitable let.
One of the keys to a successful let is matching the property to the tenants you’re targeting. Consider:
- What type of Bradford property do you have?
- Where is it?
- What types of people are typically looking for similar properties in the area?
- What external factors (major employers moving onto the area, existing employers, urban regeneration projects etc) might enable your Bradford letting agent to target a particular organisation or group of people?
EXAMPLE: You own a Bradford city centre apartment close to the areas of regeneration, and handy for the city’s bars and restaurants. Your ideal target, therefore, might be young professionals who, by renting your apartment, could find themselves living close to the heart of the city, close to transport links, and close to entertainment areas.
With your target market set, consider what changes you could make to the apartment to make it a more attractive let to your target market (eg contemporary design, modern fixtures and fittings, a generous supply of power sockets etc).
Remember, don’t just think about what will attract your target market. Consider what might keep them for the long term.
EXAMPLE: You’re letting a 4-bedroom family property in Shipley. On-street parking in the area is limited, and you know that a 2 parent family is likely to require 2 parking spaces.
To address this need, you create an additional car parking space by taking out part of a garden wall. You’ve immediately addressed a potential concern for a prospective tenant, and made a longer let more likely.
2. Choosing your letting agent
Pick the right team to help you let, manage and maintain your Bradford property.
It’s easy to think of your Bradford letting agent simply as someone who will help you find a tenant for your property. But if you really want to make a profitable success of every let, then putting a tenant in place is just the start of an ongoing process that includes deposit protection, maintenance, compliance, renewals and more.
Find out how much further Locate goes to ensure every let is a successful one, for you and your tenants, here.
3. Valuing your property
Set a price that sells
How you value your property is a critical part of the letting process. Too high and you won’t attract views. Too low and you’ll miss out on potential extra income.
The key to setting the right price is to understand the state of rental prices within the area – and that usually takes the help and experience of a local letting agent.
You can find out more about how Locate will value your Bradford property here.
4. Your legal requirements
Understanding (and meeting) your legal obligations, simply
From Energy Performance Certificates to ensuring the sofas you supply meet fire regulations, as a landlord, you are bound by lots of regulations. Keeping on top of compliance issues can feel like a never ending (and ever changing) challenge.
But at Locate, we’re always on hand to help make meeting your responsibilities easier. Find out more about landlord compliance issues, and the regulations that affect you.
5. Things to do before you let
How to make sure that when viewing starts, prospective tenants like what they see.
Finish the building work: Most tenants will want to move into their new home quickly – so they’re not likely to be impressed by having to wait for building work to be finished.
If you’re renovating your Bradford property now, make structural work a priority, and make sure the builders, electricians and plasterers (and their rubbish) are gone before you consider trying to let your Bradford property. In fact, we’d recommend that you wait until the next stage is complete too.
Redecorate: Remember you’re not decorating a Bradford property that you’ll be living in. Your decorating for a stranger whose tastes may be completely different to your own. Keeping things neutral ensures you appeal to the widest possible market – and ensure more prospective tenant will be able to see themselves living there.
Utilities: Consider installing prepay gas and electricity meters (unless the property is in multiple occupation where different rules apply). Prepay meters can ensure you’re never left with outstanding bills at the end of a let.
Although tenants are usually responsible for arranging their own TV, phone and internet services, they will have less choice if your property isn’t fitted for cable/fibre optics etc. Installing them before your let could increase the attractiveness of your property.
Are the fixtures fixed? Shelves, kitchen units and anything mounted on or anchored to the wall should all be safely and solidly secured. Aside from the frustration, time and cost of having to carry out maintenance work, collapsing units can mean injury and litigation.
Flooring: Hard-wearing and wipe clean are ideal surfaces for property lets. Wood and tiles are easier to keep clean and stain-free, and are less likely to deteriorate, than carpets.
Furnished or unfurnished? Even in an unfurnished Bradford property let, a tenant would still expect to find all the essential appliances (fridge, cooker, washer/dryer and dishwasher).
For all other furnishings, remember that accidents happen, so don’t place anything in the property that you couldn’t bear to lose. Any furniture you supply should comply with regulations.
Insurance: regular home and contents insurance (the sort you may have on your own home) won’t be sufficient for a buy to let property. You’ll need specialist landlord cover which, as with all insurances, will vary with the property, area etc. We can recommend a specialist landlord insurance broker – just ask.
6. What happens when a tenant moves in?
The things you’ll need to give your tenant at the start of their let:
- A copy of the signed tenancy agreement – Although there’s no legal obligation to have a formal tenancy agreement, they make sense for every landlord. That’s because, whether you have a tenancy agreement or not, you’re still bound by all the same landlord obligations. Having an agreement simply gives you more protection. To find out more, or to create your tenancy agreement, contact us.
- A copy of the agreed inventory – Everyone’s interests are protected when you supply a detailed, accurate inventory signed by both parties. You can find out how to create an inventory that works for everyone here.
- The gas safety certificate – Where gas is installed.
- Energy Performance Certificate – You can find out more about what an EPC is, why you need one, and how to get one here.
- Deposit paperwork – You can find out more about deposit protection here.
7. Managing the tenancy
The day to day management of a tenancy can be one of the most time consuming aspects of being a landlord, but it’s something you can leave entirely to us if you would rather concentrate on finding the next Bradford property investment for your portfolio, rather than fixing the dishwasher and ensuring the EPC is renewed.
Managed Services from Locate means you can leave all of the following to us:
- EPCs: On time renewal of the property’s essential Energy Performance Certificate
- Furniture: Replacement of single pieces of furniture to full room renewals, including appliances
- Property maintenance: Pointing, grouting, tiling, roofing, plumbing and more: if your tenant reports a problem, we have the trusted team to put things right
- Cleaning: End of tenancy deep cleans and pre-viewing spruce-ups to ensure the period between lets is as short as possible.
Find out more about all our services here
8. Renewing or ending the tenancy
What to do when the tenant’s lease is up
If the tenancy is for a fixed term, and as your Bradford letting agent, we will normally contact you and the tenant a few months before the end of the tenancy to find out what your intentions are.
You may be happy to renew. You may wish to make a rent adjustment. Or either of you may wish to alter one or some of the terms of the tenancy. If a renewal is agreed, we will handle the formalities.
If you wish to end a tenancy (at any time) you may need to service notice. You can find out more about landlord notices here.
If your tenant plans to move on, you will want to have a new tenant in place for your Bradford property as quickly as possible, and we will begin marketing your property for you.
At the end of the tenancy, you will need to arrange a final inventory, the return of keys, and the return of the tenant’s deposit, minus any agreed deductions. If we are managing the property for you, we will take care of all the exit details on your behalf.
Ready to let your Bradford property with Locate? Please call us on 01274 720 900.