Void periods – one of the landlords greatest enemies

Brilliant article Mark - I too have purchased to order when it's made sense to do so and you are right, it's worked very well for me. What's with the downer on Rottwieler's though? I have a friend who has a 9 year old Rottie, a brut of a dog but gentle as a kiddie's teddy bear and nobody but nobody is ever going to break into her house! She's a good tenant too which is a good job I suppose as I doubt many people would want to be the bailiff trying to turf her out LOL. Seriously though, I don't think you can judge a dogs reputation by breed, more often than not their personality is a reflection of the owners.

Have you considered the strategy of renting by the room. If you have a 3 bed property and a family leaves, all your income vanishes for the whole period. If you're renting by the room, and one tenant leaves, you're getting more income for the house overall, you've still got 2 lots of rent coming in while you replace the third tenant.

Totally agree with you on that one MA. I too have purchased to order when logical to do so and do not regret it. I also allow pets but dont distinguish with breed - and as you say the house with the Rotty will be far safer than the house with the goldfish so less likely to get turned over. Regarding the article I too have found that a variety of size from 1 bed to 3 bed has helped retain tenant base

Interesting strategy. I assume in relation to points:-
1. You do not own any flats as otherwise you cannot give consent to an individual satellite dish
without freeholder consent.
2. If you kep all your tenants in all your properties for life Mark you wouldn't just radically reduce
voids - you'd eliminate them completely!!
3. Why would the tenant only visit after you had made an offer and had it accepted? What
happens if they don't like the property you have just committed to buy?

sometimes its good to have a change of tenant. we find it very hard to yearly increase rent fully in line with inflation and i hear of many landlords who never attempt to put up rents mid term. IMO very bad business. when a tenant leaves for whatever reason and usually no reflection on us or the accommodation, we invariably achieve a large rent increase and short void...so apart from the hassle well worth it. with the amount of churn in london very unlikely buy to order would be worthwhile.

I have virtually no voids in any of my rooms. I rent rooms individually, I put ads on Spareroom.com the moment I am told someone is leaving., this costs me less than £100 a year for 2 ads which I can keep changing and keep them on my "file" on Spareroom with photos etc, I just have to click on them and they are re-instated when the room becomes vacant again. The notice period they are supposed to give me is one month, the deposit I take is £100.

I don't take references. I talk to the person for a fair bit and if I feel OK about them they are generally fine, with one or two alcohol-related memorable exceptions. The rent is payable one month in advance. Very occasionally I lose a bit of money if hardly any notice is given to me when they leave, but I can generally let a room within a week or two, due to the standard of accommodation being high and the deposit being only £100, and the rents reasonable. The area is in demand for rooms as there are a lot of places of work around here., so the £100 deposit usually covers a short void period beyond the short notice period they may have occasionally given me.

I did let one lady have a cat, as we have cats, but it has caused a lot of problems including a tom cat coming in and spraying and the place stinking of cat wee and complaints about hygiene from the other tenants. Also the destruction of the carpet where the cat has tried to get out of the living room when the door has been shut to the rest of the house as another tenant didn't want it going upstairs.

But really, he knew there was a cat there when he moved in so he should not be shutting doors on it or moaning about it. But neither should she be feeding her cat on the work surface and encouraging it to drink from the kitchen tap! All fun and games. They are both still living there though in a constant state of warfare! Meanwhile people in the other two rooms come and go and they wonder why.

On point 3, I guess the offer could be made subject to tenant's approval. As long as they express whatever objections they may have at the beginning of the buying process, you can still pull out without any real damage being done. But if they've already told the landlord what they'd like and this ticks the boxes then they shouldn't have any objections - and remember, this is a landlord that they want to stay with!
On point 2, you'd still have voids in the smaller properties when the tenants traded up (unless you happened to have someone else trading down at the same time and could do a straight swap!).

My strategie is to purchase one bedroom flats in difrent cities and countries when there is blood on the streets, BMV flats for cash and refinance them when the market is up to use it for invest in the next location.On this strategie you have more costs of the latting agents but you have mor capital gains because you dont have to whit 15 to 20 years to dubel the properties pricies it could be hapen evry 7 to 10
years also you diversify your properties locations and currencies from rent.

Rony Aga

Same as u above, couldn't have said it better, I've had some tenants been with me 15 years. And I've bought houses for tenants, although they do ruddy move into another one of mine a year or 2 later, so the house purchase has to be cheap enough to start with. AND they have also saved me a job of THEM FINDING the house for me that I would have bought anyway if I had the time to look. So they've earn't me a lot of locked in equity to start with.
And as much as it's a pain them swapping houses every year because they want another one of mine, it still keeps me a good tenant, when I could end up having 2 bad ones if they leave & I don't give them the one that is coming up.
I don't do 'em too much to start with, but once a year has passed, I bend over backwards to help them.

there is now a new kid on the block. it's called letrent.co.uk.
you load your advert, which lasts a whole year, but you can switch it on or off as many times as you need to, change the narrative, the pictures, in fact almost anything except the type and location of the property. costs just £15 per year per property or room or shed or house or flat.
and tenants can rent either on a day by day, week by week or long term. it's your choice how you let it out.

just started.