The media is full of stories about the pressures facing private landlords and alarming statistics suggesting many are reluctantly selling up and exiting the market. This trend is having a dire impact on the supply of rental properties, fuelling negative rhetoric and creating further rent inflation. But could this trend be slowed down, simply through better tenancy/property management...
At Rettie, we are not witnessing an exodus of landlords. We frequently ask ourselves why it is that our landlords are only withdrawing their properties in very modest numbers and almost always because they are moving back into them, or because they had always planned to sell them after a relatively short period of renting.
One theory is that many landlords are leaving the sector due to the frustrations of unnecessary expenses which could have been avoided through better management, but in many cases become the ‘final straw’.
Many landlords choose to manage their properties privately, which saves them paying management costs, but can expose them to numerous avoidable costs as a result. As Donald Rumsfeld, the then US Secretary of Defence so wisely said in 2006, it’s the “unknown unknowns” which catch us out. These are the things landlords don’t know that they don’t know.
Managing a rental property involves so much more than just finding a tenant and then fixing the boiler when it breaks down. With safety certifications, repairing standards legislation, rules surrounding tenant’s deposits, the need to provide prescribed information to tenants at various junctures, and the risks of agreeing to rent to someone without carrying out formal background checks, there are many traps which can inadvertently catch landlords out. Mistakes made when managing a rental property, inevitably lead to costs.
If you would like to talk to our team to see how we can help you, get in touch with your local team below: