Breaking Barriers: Rising Female Voices In The Property Sector

A lawyer turned landlord to a successful blogger and podcaster Suzanne Smith, isn’t afraid of voicing her opinions.

Suzanne became a landlord later in life but has since become a leading voice in the industry.

She talks to Property118 about her journey as a landlord, women in the property sector, and EPC’s.

Property is in my blood

Suzanne became a landlord at the age of 51 and self-manages all her properties.

She tells Property118: “Property is in my blood, but I didn’t pursue it until I was 51. I came to property investing rather late in life as I never had enough time when I was working as a lawyer.

“My father was born in the East End of London and lived in a council house. He didn’t even have a bedroom; his sister got it, leaving him to sleep in the front room.

“We emigrated to New Zealand when I was five and he made money there by flipping houses — buying them, renovating them, and then moving on to the next. I saw at an early age how you could make money from investing in property.”

She says this gave her the confidence to enter the property world when she “retired” and started to begin buying houses herself to let out to tenants.

She said: “I’d always seen property as a good investment. We bought our first house in 1994 which was at the worst point of negative equity, but luckily that was the start of the golden years for property prices.”

When she landed a job in Cambridge but lived in Kent, she got creative.

Suzanne explains: “I decided to buy a flat to live there in the week instead of renting somewhere and I had the idea that once I finished the job I could let the property out to tenants.”

Underestimated all the ins and outs of being a landlord

She describes being a landlord as involving a “steep learning curve”.

Suzanne says: “I think I underestimated all the ins and outs of being a landlord. When I first let out the flat in Cambridge, I used a letting agent. It was all positive as the tenants were lovely and the letting agents were fine.

“I then started buying properties closer to where I live and again, I didn’t really know all the ins and outs of being a landlord.

“I did have good letting agents but then the personnel changed and the service went downhill. I got a bit fed up and thought I needed to start doing it myself. I joined the NRLA, became accredited, and learned how to do it the right way.”

She set up an account on Instagram and started to share tips. This led to her setting up her own blog, which she runs herself, called The Independent Landlord to help other landlords.

She said: “Who says you can’t learn things when you are old! I’d never built a website before, and I learnt how to code. It’s lots of fun. I enjoy it.

“One of the main reasons I think I set up the blog was that it’s really hard to find content that is practical for self-managing landlords that isn’t a sales funnel to a course.”

Despite starting from scratch, The Independent Landlord is now one of the leading independent blogs in the property sector with around 4,000 subscribers.

The world of podcasting

Suzanne has now entered the world of podcasting with a new weekly podcast called Good Landlording alongside Richard Jackson from Alphaletz.

It’s a podcast where they chat about everything landlords need to know – from starting out to growing your portfolio. Each week, they dish out practical tips and wrap things up with a “golden nugget” at the end of each episode.

Suzanne shares the backstory of the podcast’s quick start.

She said: “We set up the podcast in a month. We registered the domain name goodlandlording.com which was Richard’s idea, and we were so pleased it was available.

“We registered on the 11th of March and launched the first episode on the 11th of April.”

Not true that the property sector is male-dominated

Suzanne says she spent her career as a lawyer in a male-dominated environment.

She says: “I was often the only woman in the management team and I remember once somebody saying ‘Welcome to the boys’ club’.

“I’m very used to being in a male environment, so I just take no notice and do what I want to do! Maybe it’s the Kiwi in me, having been brought up in New Zealand.”

She explains it’s not true to say that the property sector is male-dominated.

Suzanne explains: “Almost half of landlords are women. You see more men in the media and at the big events. But there are a lot of women in the property sector. I belong to a group called the Property Sisters and we share knowledge and support each other.

“There are women out there, but we just need to put ourselves out there a bit more and see more women better represented in podcasts, events and as speakers, as we are here, because we just don’t seem to get the same opportunities to speak. We can make them ourselves, like with my podcast.”

Renters (Reform) Bill will make landlords more picky

Suzanne says the Renters (Reform) Bill will make landlords more picky when it comes to choosing tenants.

She explains: “We won’t want to take risks. Landlords won’t be able to think we can give them a try then if they are no good, we’ll serve them a Section 21. They’ll need to look for a long-term relationship from the start.

“Landlords will actually have to interview tenants properly and make sure there is a good fit.

“The downside of this is that if there are applicants who don’t have a good credit history or CCJ’s then it is going to be harder for them to rent somewhere and landlords won’t take chances on people.”

Suzanne has always seen the relationship with tenants as long-term and doesn’t think much will change things for her. She believes that having long-term tenants is a good thing for landlords.

Suzanne appreciates that not everyone will have had the same experience and that her views on the Renters (Reform) Bill may not align with everyone’s perspective.

She explains: “The Renters (Reform) Bill is trying to give more stability to renters – but it is going to be a big period of change and people will have to change and adapt.

“In my opinion, I don’t think the Bill is going to be as bad as people make out. I know that abolishing Section 21 is very unpopular but there are quite a lot of new grounds for possession under Section 8 which will help, assuming they clear the backlog in the courts and make it easier to use Section 8.

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad landlords around but there are considerably more good landlords than bad landlords. There are some good things in the Bill like the Property Portal, which will help local authorities track down the bad landlords.”

Current EPC system is not fit for purpose

Suzanne says the current EPC system is “not fit for purpose” and agrees with the decision to scrap EPC C targets for the private rented sector.

She explains: “I think it was the right decision and it’s important to recognise the current EPC system is not fit for purpose.

“I’ve seen for myself viewing properties there’s a huge amount of variation in basically the same property in terms of the ratings.

“I’ve also seen how some EPC assessors are better than others. I bought a property five years ago and it had an EPC E. I looked back in history and saw that it had an EPC D beforehand, and it had been managed by a letting agent.

“The letting agent didn’t say why it had gone from a D to an E and when I looked at the detail the assessor hadn’t looked in the loft and seen all the insulation.”

She adds that upgrading the property cost a huge fortune and says: “It cost more than £10,000 and I put in more insulation, a new boiler and new windows which were hugely expensive.

“If the rules are brought back again then there needs to be more help from the government towards landlords.

“If it’s not economically effective then landlords will sell up and there’s evidence to suggest that landlords were selling up because of the worries of EPC C being introduced.”

To find out more about what Suzanne Smith thinks about the future of the private rented sector and her new podcast, then watch the video below.

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