Landlords often get a bad press, especially in this time of increased rental demand. They are often seen as greedy, hovering up the best properties, whilst poor tenants shell out their hard-earned cash, with a healthy profit in return for little work required from the landlord.
A quick search of the internet shows that many landlords, equally, feel hard done by. Stories of horror tenants, taking root in properties and then leaving, having built up significant rent arrears, and causing a copious amounts of damage to the property.
So what is the true picture for landlords?
Rental demand has undisputedly increased, and there are more and more tenants than ever in Britain. This must mean that the picture is not all bad, surely? The ‘let set’ is growing, so there must be something good about being a landlord. Low interest rates mean that, for many, bricks and mortar is a very good investment.
Do landlords enjoy being a landlord?
There are good points to being a landlord. Brian, from Warwick, successfully used some redundancy money to plough into building his mini-property empire. Now, several years and properties down the line, Brian is able to live off the yield that his investment brings. But, with his reward, comes an element of responsibility. Brian spends his time answering the phone to tenants with leaks, or who really want to buy a puppy for their child’s birthday, and want his permission. Of course, Brian could farm these tasks out to a letting agent- but he would pay for the privilege. Brian claims to enjoy this lifestyle, though. He likes the fact that, not only is he self-employed, but he is also able to use his current work to build an investment for his retirement.
Other landlords point to some sort of social reward; one landlord, who rents out student properties in Manchester, reports that she enjoys seeing her students ‘flourish’ during the time that they live in her properties. One of the best points, for this landlord, is to be able to meet the tenants and build up a professional relationship with them, making sure that they live in the kind of property that most people would want their children to reside in whilst at university.
One landlord from South Wales enjoys being able to buy a property, do it up, and then continually maintain it whilst getting some revenue in from it. This is particularly the case in socially deprived areas, or areas where there is a lack of people who can afford to buy properties, and where there are rows and rows of uninhabited houses. The chance to do these up, and rent them to people who appreciate them, can be highly rewarding.
There has been some more interesting comments from Landlords on what they enjoy about being a landlord on the Landlord Network Group here.
Landlords are in the business for the long term investment
What most landlords do agree upon though is that they are in this business for the long term, and that whilst they enjoy any income generated by the property, they accept it is probably not the easiest form of income, but they are generally steadfast on the end game and looking forward to the day their mortgages are paid down and comfortable with their cash being tied up in property which for the long term is usually a reliable form of investment. Rent guarantees can however provide some security over the income generated in the meantime, ensuring that the landlord does not actually end up out of pocket themselves when it comes to paying the mortgage if the tenants have failed to make their rental payments. Low cost 6 and 12 month rent guarantees are available from Legal 4 Landlords.
A spokesman for Tenant Evictions UK explained that “Only a small portion of tenants can be problematic, but typically the problems created can be severe and acute, it is unlikely that a landlord will be able to completely avoid ever being in this situation – you would need to be very lucky indeed, but we hope the small number of problematic tenants do not have too much negative impact on the landlords overall enjoyment, as services such as ours can minimise the stress as much as possible simply by taking the landlord out of the situation for a relatively low fixed fee.
Whatever the reason for being a landlord, the experience is what you make it. Staying in professional touch with tenants, and finding the line between being dragon and push-over, is crucial. Keeping the property not only as you would like to live, but also in a good state of repair so that it can be re-let if needed, is key. Many tenants are not in a position to buy, and so are looking to lay roots in a nice rental property; if landlords treat their tenants well, then it could be that the relationship is beneficial for both parties.
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