As of 2012, all house sale ads in the UK will have to publish details of energy efficiency ratings.

Currently, anyone selling a property in the UK is required to have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) before they put the property on the market. However, even though the EPC is in the pipeline, the full details of how energy efficient a property is aren’t always available for early viewers.

In a bid to get over this issue, and help encourage home owners to become more energy efficient aware, a new EU Directive will come into force in 2012 making it compulsory for all EPC ratings to be published upfront with for sale adverts, so that everyone will know the ratings before they even look at a property.

If you’re thinking of putting one of your investment properties on the market in the next few years, then experts are advising that it’s a good idea to check the energy efficiency of your property now and, if necessary, get energy improvement work done sooner, rather than later.

In addition to improving individual properties, the new legislation will also help the government on its bid to reduce household carbon emissions by 29% by the year 2020.

In a previous post, we looked at the benefits of staging an investment property for rental viewings. If you’ve been inspired to have a go, then here’s the first part of a guide offering practical steps to help you learn how you could stage your property ready for prospective tenants to view.

Clean The Property

Your property needs to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom to make it spotless for viewings, as potential tenants aren’t impressed by dirt or dust. If the carpets haven’t been cleaned for a while, then a deep clean may be in need.

Don’t forget to clean the windows and blinds, dust the ceiling to remove any spiders webs, wipe down the tiles in the bathroom and kitchen, and ensure the hallway or entrance is clean and tidy too.

Give the property a good airing by leaving the windows open to get fresh air through.

Sort Out Repairs

If the property has been let for a while, or you’ve just taken it on, check to see whether there are any repairs that need doing. Check for cracked tiles in the bathroom, loose paving outside, drawer handles that need tightening in the kitchen or light bulbs that need replacing. You want your property to look in tip-top condition, attract a good fee from rentals and rent quickly.

If you don’t want to do the repairs yourself, then hire a maintenance specialist to do the job for you.

Redecorate

If the interior walls, woodwork or front door are all looking a bit tired and worn, then get out a paintbrush and give them a lick of fresh paint. Choose neutral colours for the interior, to give it a fresh and contemporary look – it will also mean that the tenants existing furniture should go with the rooms if they’re not painted in bright colours.

Paint woodwork, such as skirting boards or door frames, in a satin finish, as it won’t go yellowy with age like gloss paint does.

You can use colour on the front door though, as that can help make it stand out from others on the street. Favourites include red, blue or green.

Clear Clutter

Ensure the property is clear and clutter-free. Remove unnecessary furniture to make rooms appear bigger and certainly remove or replace any old or battered furniture. Present clear and tidy rooms as they would be used – e.g. don’t have a bed in the living room (honestly, some landlords do!).

Outside, ensure the walk up to the house is clear – cutback overhanging bushes or trim hedges – and, where possible, hide the rubbish bins from sight.

Look out for part 2, to discover more ways of staging your property for rental viewings!

Staging a property is a technique that is used more and more by people selling a home, but it’s also a useful method for property investors to use when renting a property too. It works well for both properties that you’re trying to re-let, as well as properties that you’ve just purchased and are renting for the first time. Here are some reasons why staging a property can significantly help rental viewings.

The basic idea behind staging is to present a property in the best light possible. Careful thought and care is taken into getting the property ready for rental viewings, which may involve a degree of re-decoration, cleaning and tidying up. Although it can take time, money and effort, if you’re keen to achieve the best possible rental price for a property, then staging it can be very worthwhile.

If a property looks good, appeals to tenants and has everything they’d want in a property and more, then there’s more chance that you will be able to achieve a good rental fee than if you don’t bother with staging at all.

In addition, staging a property can help widen the appeal of a property too. If it boasts good facilities and good quality décor, then you may be able to attract a wider range of tenants – and those with more disposable cash – than you could otherwise have done.

In another post, we’ll look at how you can go about staging a property for rental viewings.

Saturday 7th August 2010. FREE HBFi Networking Event and 1-2-1 Personal Wealth Consultations – Birmingham NEC.

http://deals.hbfinvestmentproperties.co.uk/Event0708.aspx

Would you like a FREE personal 1-2-1 wealth consultation with the leading UK property experts and property buyers showing you how you can turn £995 into £52K in 5 years by buying just one discounted property ‘no money down’? Our experts are the ‘real deal’ – we are the guys WHO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY from property and we can show you how to do exactly the same! 
 
Our investors have learned how to make £52K in 5 years from buying one property for just £995 and pay NO TAX!! Discounted ‘no money down’ deals are available on the day which has been a massive hit with property investors!
 
The venue is: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Pendigo Way, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, B40 1PS.
 
The main event starts at 10:30am with your personal 1-2-1 consultations starting at 09:30am.  PLEASE BOOK EARLY for your personal 1-2-1 consultation with one of our property experts and to get access to the best properties that we have for sale on the day.

To confirm your place for you and your guests NOW for Saturday 7th August 2010, please register at:

http://deals.hbfinvestmentproperties.co.uk/Event0708.aspx

I personally look forward to meeting you at our event.

Renting out your properties and earning a good, regular income is usually the first priority of property investors. But if there comes a time when you want to sell one or more properties – perhaps in order to use the money to invest in something bigger and better – it’s useful to know what can help add value to your bricks and mortar investment.

A recent survey involving over 200 leading estate agents in the UK, carried out by movewithus, analysed the best ways of adding value to a property. They identified the most profitable additions that could be made and looked at how much value could be added, based on average price values.

The number one most profitable addition was found to be adding an extra bedroom, which could increase the value of a property by over £14,500. A loft conversion adds over £11,000 and an extra bathroom can add on just over £10,000.

If you’re prepared to put a bit of work and money into your property before you sell, you could end up with a higher sale price than you bargained for. Many of the improvements, such as a loft conversion, extra bedroom and extra bathroom, could also add a significant chunk of extra rental income to your property too, if you think about improving it early on.

Here’s the top 10 most valuable additions you can add to a property.

The first percentage figure relates to the typical average value added and the second monetary figure relates to the added value based on the Land Registry’s average house price (of £165,596).

1. Extra bedroom, 8.8% – £14,572
2. Loft conversion, 7.1% – £11,757
3. Extra bathroom, 6.1% – £10,101
4. New kitchen, 5.8% – £9,605
5. Central heating, 5.4% – £8,942
6. Off street parking, 5.2% – £8,611
7. New bathroom, 5.1% – £8,445
8. Conservatory, 5% – £8,280
9. Double glazing, 4.2% – £6,955
10. New conservative decoration, 3.7% – £6,127

In our A to Z of Property Investing we’ve reached G – and G is for Goals. If you’re involved in the business of property investing, then it helps to have goals. Goals give you something to aim for and a target to work towards and can help keep you focused through good and bad times.

When you’re thinking about what goals you may like to have, it helps to consider them in terms of short-term property investing goals, medium term and long-term goals. In the short-term, your aim may be to purchase and let two properties, keep them going well and see the value on the properties rise. In the medium term, you may be keen to buy another two properties, to double your earnings. In the long-term, your goal for the future may be to build up a property portfolio of 20 or more properties.

It goes without saying that most people aren’t in the position to pop out and buy 20 properties outright – it takes time, commitment and effort to build up to that stage. If you were just starting out and only had one goal – to own 20 properties – it may seem rather far off, so having smaller goals along the way can help maintain your motivation and give you other, more achievable, milestones to reach.

Other smaller goals can be set on a monthly, half-yearly or yearly basis and can involve anything from putting a certain amount of money aside for future investments, to gaining new tenants for your properties. If you want to be reminded of your goals, then some people find that writing down your goals or sticking a copy of them up where you’ll see them regularly, such as on a noticeboard, can help them keep focused.

If you’ve not stopped to think about or plan out your own goals recently, then why not have a go now? We’re over halfway through the year, so you could use the latter half of this year to set some small, achievable goals and see how you get on. In January 2011, you could review how you’ve done and then set yourself some new goals to work towards next year.

Not all goals work out as planned, particularly if they’re affected by the wider economic situation, and there may be times when you have to go back a step or two before moving forwards again. In the case of long-term goals, your eventual goalposts may change over time, or you may wish to revise your aims.

Whether you stick to your goals completely, or find them changing over time, having the ideas mapped out in the first place can be very useful and, if nothing else, will give you ideas and information to look back on when you’re reflecting on your property investing career.

Catch up on the other instalments in our A to Z of Property Investing series:

A is for Appreciation
B is for Buy-to-Let
C is for Contracts
D is for Deals
E is for Experience
F is for Freehold

There’s good news for landlords in the UK, as recently released figures show that the number of tenants seeking rental property has risen again.

The data was collected by Countryside Residential Lettings, who have been gathering statistics since 2003. In the last three months until the end of June 2010, they found that over 50,000 people were looking for rental accommodation – the highest they’ve ever recorded. The biggest spike was seen during June, when over 18,000 new tenants registered for rental property.

These figures are noticeably higher – 16% up – than the first three months of the year and suggest that more people are beginning to look for rental properties.

Some of the data they gathered will be of interest to property investors and landlords, as it gives an indication of which areas people seemed to be interested in. For example, the most sought-after properties were two bedroom homes in south west England, where an average of 23.1 people were keen to rent each property.

On average there are now 5.5 tenants competing for every property, an increase from 4.9 tenants per property during the first quarter of 2010. With demand being higher, the sooner a property is available, the better for tenants, with properties being let within an average of two weeks.

In line with this increased demand for property, a small increase in rental prices has also been recorded, particularly on houses. For example, the average cost of renting a four bedroom family home has risen by 4% to £1,090.

Demand for rental property is likely to continue for the next few months at least, especially as the annual rush to find and secure student accommodation in university towns and cities will soon be upon us.

Thursday 29th July 2010. FREE HBFi Networking Evening and 1-2-1 Personal Wealth Consultations – Crowne Plaza, Crawley/Gatwick

http://deals.hbfinvestmentproperties.co.uk/Event2907.aspx

Would you like a FREE personal 1-2-1 wealth consultation with the leading UK property experts and property buyers showing you how you can turn £995 into £52K in 5 years by buying just one discounted property ‘no money down’? Our experts are the ‘real deal’ – we are the guys WHO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY from property and we can show you how to do exactly the same! 
 
Our investors have learned how to make £52K in 5 years from buying one property for just £995 and pay NO TAX!! Discounted ‘no money down’ deals are available on the day which has been a massive hit with property investors!
 
The venue is: Crown Plaza Hotel, Langley Drive, Crawley, RH11 7SX – http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/cp/1/en/hotel/LGWUK/transportation?start=1
The event starts at 7pm with your personal 1-2′-1 consultations starting at 4:30pm.  PLEASE BOOK EARLY for your personal 1-2-1 consultation with one of our property experts and to get access to the best properties that we have for sale on the day.

To confirm your place for you and your guests NOW for Thursday 29th July 2010, please register at:

http://deals.hbfinvestmentproperties.co.uk/Event2907.aspx

I personally look forward to meeting you at our event.

Following on from our post on what to include in a rental property advert, now we’re turning our thoughts to the all important issue of taking photos to include with your ad.

Property ads with photos tend to get more interest that those that don’t, so it’s always worth putting the extra time and effort into sorting out photos. However, don’t rush it or use any old photos you have to hand – first impressions count and poor images can cause people to quickly move on and not even read the crux of your ad.

A good property ad includes shots of the exterior of the property, photographed in good light and showing it off to its best ability. If you’re marketing the property in the summer, then include a recent photo, rather than one showing it in the depths of winter with snow on the ground.

As well as exterior shots, it’s helpful to have a few photos highlighting the interior of the property. Choose the best rooms for this and make an effort to ensure they are tidy and clean before taking your photos. Ideally, take them in the day, when there’s plenty of natural daylight, rather than at night, when the pictures may end up looking a bit gloomy. If you’re not blessed with good weather, then try putting on a few lamps in the room to create a feeling of light.

If you’re not known for your photographic skills, then find someone who is. Obtain high res images of the results, as this will help with the clarity of the photos and ensure they look good whether they’re used in print or online media adverts.