No landlord wants to see their rental property on left on standby, but unfortunately, there may come a time when your house or flat becomes empty.

If this happens, you’ll need to find a tenant quickly to make sure you’re not losing money.

Whether it’s because your current tenants are moving out or because you have recently bought a rental property that needs filling, our tips will ensure you have the know-how to find tenants quickly.

1. Set a Competitive Rental Price

It should come as no surprise that one of the most important elements of letting a property is making sure you’re asking for the right amount to rent.

However, the truth is that not enough landlords review the rent they’re asking for when they put a property on the market. This leads to them either not charging enough or facing long void periods because they’re asking for too much.

The difficulty is walking that line between setting a rent that will generate a lot of interest without setting one that is too low or high.

This isn’t much of a problem if you’re up to date with rental figures in the local area, but if you’re not, you’re in a bit of trouble. This is where you need to have a discussion with an experienced lettings agent to work out the best rate to ask for.

The easiest thing you can do is get a fresh valuation before you look for a tenant. This is also the cheapest option, as you can get one of these valuations for free from us.

2. Find the Right Tenant for your Property

Landlords up and down the country have an idea in their heads about who they want to let their property out to without really considering if their property is right for that market.

For example, you might want to have a single businessman as a tenant because you think he’ll take better care of your property than a young family. But, if you’re letting out a three-bedroom house in the suburbs, it’s very unlikely to appeal to Don Draper or Harvey Specter any time soon. Unless, of course, they suddenly need a home with a few extra rooms near a good school and play park.

The aim is to let your property to the people who will have an interest in it and will take care of it properly.

Finding the right tenant quickly can be done with the help of a lettings agent; we’re a dab hand at vetting potential renters by how suitable the property is for them, after all.

We thoroughly go through your prospective tenant’s background to make sure they are suitable for you. The vetting process includes credit, income and identity checks, and we also check they have the right to rent property before going through the references from their former landlords.

A lettings agent’s know-how means we’re in a position to make a professional call as to whether your property and potential tenants are suitable for each other in the long-term.

If everything is in order, we’ll give you the thumbs up.

3. Have a Thorough and Correct Online Advert

If you decide to advertise on property websites, you are likely to be competing with hundreds of other landlords looking to rent out their properties in your local area.

So, if you want someone to stop and take notice of your advert, you need to be able to grab their attention and keep it.

If it helps, think of your ad as an online dating profile. Trust us, this will make sense in the end…

For a lot of people, love at first sight is a real thing, so make sure your pictures highlight the best assets you have to offer.

Here are some of our top tips for taking eye-catching images of your property (though we’re pretty sure they work just as well for your Tinder profile):

• Use a good-quality camera, not just your smartphone
• Take pictures during the day to take advantage of natural light
• Remove anything that could be seen as distracting or embarrassing out of shot

After you’ve hooked them with those dreamy blue eyes, it’s time to seal the deal by opening up and telling them about yourself.

Remember though, you have to give an accurate description of your property. While lying on a dating profile is just in bad taste, it’s actually illegal to lie about the details of your property when putting it up for rent. So, keep that in mind when listing the following:

• The number of rooms you have
• The size of each room
• How much space there is
• The property’s energy efficiency (you’ll need to have a valid Energy Performance Certificate to prove this)

It’ll also help if you can list:

• The local amenities, such as transport links, nearby schools, parks, local shops and entertainment venues like pubs or cinemas.
• Key features of the property that will make it stand out, such as a balcony or off-street parking.
• Terms for renting the property such as the length of the tenancy agreement, if bills are included in the rent, and whether smoking is permitted inside.

And just a few more legalities for you to remember; you aren’t allowed to charge your tenants for letting fees such as admin work and credit checks.

You also have to take their deposit using a Deposit Protection Service (DPS)— or another approved scheme — with the most you are able to hold being one week’s rent.

Make sure you fully understand the new Tenant Fees Act that was brought into regulation in June this year or seek advice from a lettings agent for a clearer picture.

So, if you follow our tips, you’ll have renters swiping right. And don’t forget, a poorly written advert can also turn away potential tenants, so make sure your English skills are up to scratch or consider asking a professional estate agent for help, especially when it comes to making sure your advert is legally sound.

4. Implement Modern Marketing Techniques

The power of social media these days is staggering, and the best part of it is that anyone can use it to their advantage.

If you need to find a tenant quickly, you can appeal to your friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Think about how you can use each platform to your advantage. On Facebook, you can create a post and share it to local community groups. You can also set your posts to ‘public,’ meaning your friends can share the posts so they reach a bigger audience.

By advertising on Instagram, a highly visual platform, you can grab potential tenants with eye-catching photos of the property up for rent.

Don’t forget to list your property on the portals available to private renters (note that the major portals are only open to agents), too. These are essential in reaching a huge amount of prospective renters who may not see your advert in the local papers, on social media or on online lettings agency websites. A lettings agent will help you get your property on to a portal if computers aren’t your thing.

5. Make Renting Easy

Once you’ve caught the attention of potential tenants, you need to make sure you don’t lose it. That means making the rental process as straightforward as possible.

A good tip here is making yourself available during evenings and weekends for viewings, being clued up on the local area, such as how to cut down on traffic jams during the morning commute, and making your property extra homely, with extra kitchen appliances.

If there’s a young professional or student market in your area, you may even consider making renting extra easy by including the bills as part of the price. This lets your tenant avoid extra paperwork and allows you to charge a premium.

But if there’s a reason as to why you can’t make yourself available, consider hiring a lettings agent to be there in your place. What’s more, you’ll find an agent’s experience will help seal the deal quicker.

6. Use a Property Management Service

One of the things landlords struggle with most is simply making their property visible. You can have the best buy-to-let in the world, but if no one knows about it it’s not much use.

If this sounds familiar, you should consider passing the burden of finding tenants over to a lettings agent. Not only will they do all the hard work we’ve covered in this blog, but they’ll also allow you to benefit from their database of prospective clients.

That means that they often have tenants ready and waiting, so you can cut down on void periods and limit loss.

In short, by using a property lettings service you can expect your rental to be seen far and wide by far more people than you could generate on your own.

If your ultimate goal is to generate tenants quickly and to get the right tenants for your property, then using an agent is how you do it.

Finding the Best Tenants in the Fastest Time

Finding tenants quickly is a fundamental task that separates the great landlords from the good ones. While this can be a little daunting if you don’t have a network of tenants already at your disposal, it doesn’t have to be!

Our lettings packages mean you don’t have to worry about your property left empty for the foreseeable. You can go from no tenant to the first months rent being collected without having to lift and finger, and let’s be honest, isn’t that the dream?

For more from the best estate agent in Manchester, get in touch with the Philip Ellis team today to find out more about our lettings package, as well as enjoying other useful landlord tips.