The traditional method of getting a finger on the pulse of what tenants really want is to get to know letting agents or estate agents and find out what people are asking for and which properties have let out quickly. It’s also worth asking prospective tenants too.

But now that so many people use the Internet to advertise their rental properties, and tenants use property and lettings websites to search for their perfect rental home, there are new ways of finding out what people are actually looking for.

Many of the property listing websites periodically release details of their top search terms, so you can suss out what people are looking for. As well as getting an insight into the minds of potential tenants, it’s also really useful as an idea for keywords, that you can add – if relevant – into any online ads or listings you create for your property.

The Zoopla website has recently released details of their top 10 property search keywords on the site during April 2011, made by both property renters and buyers. The list makes interesting reading.

The top 10 property search keywords made by people searching for a property to rent were:

1. Garden
2. Garage
3. Parking
4. Studio
5. Detached
6. Furnished
7. Rural
8. Balcony
9. Bungalow
10. Bills included

(Source: www.zoopla.co.uk)

It’s not surprising that desirability for a garden is high, especially with summer weather issues on people’s mind at this time of the year, but since so few people use garages for the purpose of parking a car these days, it’s a bit of a surprise to see a garage ranking as the second most popular search term for property renters. It’s not surprising to see parking ranking in the top three though.

What do you think of the results? Are there any other terms you’d expect to see in the top 10?

The survey by RICS, which uses data obtained until the end of January 2011, found that tenant demand has been steadily accelerating since late 2009. Although there has been a fall in the supply of properties to let, there has been very strong demand from tenants, which has resulted in rental fees and rental yields increasing nationally.

The strongest increases are reported in London and the South East, as expected, but they’ve also gone up in the North and North West too, which will be good news for landlords and property investors in those areas.

Interestingly, tenant demand over the surveyed period continued to increase at a greater rate for houses than flats, adding further emphasis to the idea that investing in houses at the moment is a good move.

In terms of the type of tenants taking up lettings, RICS found that new lettings to private individuals rose to 72% and lettings to companies rose to 7%. The number of lettings to students dropped to 5% and the share of social tenants remained about the same at 10%.

The average speed of broadband in Britain is 6.86Mbps (megabits per second), but despite this, speeds can vary considerably depending on location. The slowest speed in Britain, for example, is in the village of Farningham in Kent, which only gets an average of 1.30Mbps. Although it might not mean much to you, when you consider that it would take someone 12 hours to download a film in Farningham, compared to an hour or so in high speed areas, the frustration does become apparent.

A survey by ISP Review found that nearly 75% of people would be put off a property if it didn’t have access to high speed broadband and over half would be prepared to pay more if it had fast broadband.

With more people working from home and the Internet being such a huge part of our everyday lives, property experts are beginning to recognise that broadband speed does matter.

A well known property website is teaming up with BT to list broadband speeds alongside all the other standard property information they provide on their listings, so perhaps considering the broadband speed your properties offer may be a useful new addition?

There’s been encouraging news over the last year that demand for rental property has risen and along with it rental prices have gone up too. If you’ve been looking at the data and admiring the rents being gained by other landlords, then you may well be thinking about how and when you could increase the rental prices of your own properties.

But unlike other lines of business, the arrival of a new year isn’t necessarily the best time for a landlord to announce rental increases. For a start, if you’re using a letting agent to handle the letting process for you, there may be a line in the contract preventing you from announcing sudden rental increases. If you do want to do so, you may need to give a certain amount of notice to your tenants – it can’t be a sudden, spur-of-the-moment idea.

In some instances, there may even be a clause preventing you from raising the rent until a certain time – such as not before a tenant has been in situ for one year or more.

No tenants are ever going to be all that thrilled to learn their rent is going up. Although some landlords may have benefitted from increased rents, statistics released by the Association of Residential Letting Agents recently, relating to the final quarter of 2010, indicate that 40% of landlords have reported tenants slipping into arrears with their rental payments. So this suggests that perhaps now isn’t the best time to add more pressure by putting the rent up.

Overall, it helps to think about the pros and cons of rental increases and the effect it could have on your existing tenants. For example, if putting the rent up could force them to leave, then do you really want to risk the potential of an empty property all for a few extra pounds per month?

It’s a tricky issue, but perhaps the best way round for everyone of handling rental increases is to stick to doing so when one set of tenants leaves and the property is about to be rented out again. The new tenants will need to take the rental fee into consideration when agreeing to the property and, hopefully, you stand more chance of them being able to afford it.

If the type of property you’re letting attracts young families, professionals or students, then the chances are that they’ll be actively using one or more social networking sites. Even older tenants may be active in some form online. It’s quick and easy to run a search online using your tenant’s name and any other information they’ve provided you with.

Checking Out Tenants on Facebook

There are millions of people registered on Facebook now and a simple search could reveal some interesting information about your potential tenant. Depending on whether or not they have security settings in place, you may be able to see only a photo and basic information, or their whole Facebook account, photos, interests and details of their friends.

If your property is located in a small town or village, and the prospective tenants lives or works locally, then it’s even possible that you may have mutual friends or acquaintances. One landlord noticed this whilst checking out a tenant on Facebook and was able to email the mutual contact and ask for an additional character reference.

Checking Out Tenants on LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, you could check out a tenant in a similar way and get information that could verify their employment details, or even reveal that they’re currently not employed. Co-workers and employers often write references for people on LinkedIn, so it can be an interesting way of getting extra testimonials, if only regarding their attitude to work.

Looking Up Tenants on Twitter

On Twitter, you may be able to get an idea of the interests, social life or lifestyle of the person and the types of people they acquaint themselves with.

Finally, it’s also worth sticking the tenants name into a Google search too, as they may appear elsewhere on the Internet – such as cropping up in forums, on a work-related website, writing a blog or mentioned in news reports.

It may seem a bit like spying, but as a landlord you’re entitled to check out your tenants in advance. And, in all honesty, the chances are that your tenants may be doing the same thing and checking out their potential landlord too!

Changing the locks can be a costly procedure and something you may not have given a second thought too. But some landlords have had incidents when past tenants have kept copies of door keys and come back to the property long after they’ve officially left (one female tenant, for example, got a nasty shock when a past tenant let himself back into the property very unexpectedly).

It’s particularly worth giving thought to in cases where the tenants have left on bad terms – perhaps through not paying their rate, falling out with the property management company or due to being evicted – as they be more likely to think in malicious terms and misuse door keys still in their possession. Even when all the keys are seemingly handed in, it’s very easy for duplicate copies to have been made.

If you are thinking of having the locks changed between tenants, then make sure you allow plenty of time to book the lock change in and ensure that everyone has the correct versions of the keys. This includes a property management company, who make keep master keys on file, as well as new tenants and, of course, yourself.

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.

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.

Property Type – Provide clear information about the type of property you have available (house/flat/bungalow/new build etc).

Location – The location of a property is a crucial factor for many tenants, so make it clear in which part of a town or city the property is located in. Include an address if you wish, or at least a postcode, as tenants may like to check out the area on Google maps before they even go and look at a rental property.

Size of Property – Describe the size of the property, giving information about how many bedrooms it has (and state details if one or more are doubles or singles), bathrooms, reception rooms, kitchen and dining rooms and any other interesting details, such as the existence of a conservatory or study.

Parking – Many tenants will need to know whether there is any parking available, so provide easy-to-spot details. Focus on parking that is available outside the property, on a drive or in a designated parking spot. If the property has a garage, then mention that too.

Garden or Balcony – The existence of a garden or balcony isn’t always important to every tenant, but it can help sell a property to some groups of people. So if you have a garden, include details of the size and whether it’s enclosed (this will appeal to families), or if the apartment has a balcony with room to sit out on.

Rent – This is an important detail, so don’t forget to include details of how much the rent is per calendar month or per week.

Other Selling Points – If your property has any other strong selling points, such as being within popular school catchment areas, having major train stations nearby, being close to a motorway, close proximity to major firms or hospitals, then be sure to include details in your ad.

Contact Details – At the end of the advert, and in a prominent place or in bold print, include contact details, such as a phone number or email address, so anyone can easily get in contact with you or the letting agent.

If writing isn’t your strong point, then find someone to write up the details for you or to proofread your advert before you send it out; poorly written ads, or ads with lots of mistakes, can give a poor impression to potential tenants. 

In addition to all this information, it’s helpful to include one or two high quality photographs of your property. One should be a good clear exterior shot, plus one or more interior images that show well presented rooms in a good light.

If you’re letting out an unfurnished property to one single tenant, a couple or a family, then one TV license is required for the property.  If several tenants are living in the property under separate tenancy agreements, but there is only one TV in a communal area, then technically only one TV license is required. However, if any of the tenants have their own TVs in their rooms, or watch TV on the Internet, then by law each of them should have their own TV licenses. In cases where there are several tenants, but they have a joint tenancy, then only one TV license is required for the entire property.

For fully furnished properties, or if you’re including a television in the rental, you need to be extra clear about who needs to purchase a TV license. If you provide the TV, both you and your tenants can be held responsible if a license is not purchased. When you’re putting together a tenancy agreement you need to specifiy exactly whose responsibility it is to purchase the TV license.

To make doubly sure that a license is purchased for a property where you supply a TV, you could consider buying it yourself and adding the cost of it into the rental fee. That way you can be sure your property will be fully covered and not have any unwanted TV licensing issues in the future.

Anyone watching TV or using any other devices to watch or record television programmes without owning a TV license could face prosecution, a court appearance and a fine of up to £1,000.

Related Posts

Other posts in the Preparing to Let Your Property series include:

Investment Properties

Landlord Insurance

Getting an Energy Performance Certificate

Fire Safety

Electrical Safety