How to Find a Suitable Tenant

There are many ways to find a tenant but finding the right one cane prove tricky! Many people find this part of the rental process one of the most stressful as during this period you may feel un-easy and stressed but there is no need to worry as there are so many ways to find the right tenant for you!

Use an Estate Agent

Using an estate agent is a stress free, hands off way of finding a tenant for your property. All estate agents will work in different ways but all will be happy to help you. Using an estate agent will mean you can either use a ‘tenant find’ service or a ‘management service’.

So, what’s the difference?

Full Management

Being a landlord can be a full-time job. Whilst at times your attention may not be needed, other times will require your attention to a greater and unpredictable extent. A full management service will still allow you to be involved with the decision-making process, whilst leaving the day-to-day management to an estate agent.

This option is particularly good for landlords who aren’t local to the area. If you don’t have the availability to deal with a tenancy as and when emergencies occur, whether that’s because of a full-time job or the distance between you and the tenants, a full management service is a great option to go for.

Full management also has the advantage of offering the agent’s knowledge, expertise, and local connections. Whether that’s for contacting a plumber for an emergency sink repair, knowing when and how to conduct an effective property inspection, or dealing with finances including reports, deposits, and taxes, full-time management provides the landlord support you need when you need it.

Tenant Find Only

Then we also have tenant find only if you’re happy to take on this more hands on approach to letting a house, but are still unsure where to start, a tenant find only service might be for you. Finding a tenant can be difficult and knowing how and what to look for as well as putting together a contract is not something that a lot of people know how to do.

Working with an agent will not only make you look more professional and trust worthy to prospective tenants, but the agents will have the knowledge and resources in place to perform credit checks on potential tenants but also give advice or even prepare contracts and agreements.

Some agents will also provide detailed inventories and a full tenant move-in service making sure everything’s set up and ready to go so you’re fully equipped to manage your property for the duration of the tenancy.

SpareRoom

This used to be my personal favourite way of finding tenants and back when I first started my property journey SpareRoom was a life saver. All you need to do is create an advert and choose how you wish to advertise your house/room. There are different pricing’s dependant on which package you wish to go for. SpareRoom is the UK’s number one website for room rentals, and one of the top ten property sites in the country. I would recommend SpareRoom for anyone with HMO’s and student lets as this is the market that SpareRoom have targeted the most.

Facebook

This may sound odd but this is my new found favourite way of finding tenants and is where I have my largest success rates. To advertise on Facebook all you simply need to do is join local property groups which are advertising rental properties in your area, the market place is also a good place to start advertising your property. I am a member of at least five groups and just post the same advert in each one. Once your advert has been published you can simply sit back and let the enquires flood in! I’m not kidding, I get bombarded with enquiries when advertising in this way. A massive bonus to this way of marketing is that this way of advertising is also FREE!

OpenRent

OpenRent is similar to SpareRoom, it has different advertising packages to choose from and each package offers a variation of advertisement for your property. OpenRent are truly a great advertising portal for landlords looking for tenants. The site is easy to use, works well, the adverts are quickly added to all the main rental sites such as Rightmove and it is also very competitively priced. You can post an ad directly to OpenRent for free for 30 days, they also offer to put your add onto sites such as Zoopla and Rightmove for only £29 per month! This is the best value for money.

Gumtree

Another one to use when on the search for tenants can be Gumtree. Gumtree is personally my least favourite advertising site, although it is easy to use and free I find that you can pick up some un-genuine people if you aren’t careful. It is a hot spot for scams, so be careful. That’s not to say not to take advantage of the advertisement opportunities that it has to offer, I would just say to be cautious and mindful if choosing to advertise on Gumtree.

So what’s stopping you, now there is no excuse to not get out there and find yourself a tenant and prevent any future voids. I hope this small snippet of information has helped with future tenant finding.

Bye for now Xx