Absolutely. Work-shy personalities and career benefit-seekers are not on my list.
Renovations may add to the underlying value of your asset, as well as giving you an advantage against other landlords. But they’re not going to increase the rental value above the ceiling for the size and location of the property.
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Curious as to how much you charged your previous tenant?
Be interesting to see the percentage increase for some context.
Jollymeister You have come into this business at the wrong time and it hasn’t worked out for you - your first tenant trashed your property and now you can’t get a high enough rent to recoup your expenses. If I were advising you I would say you should get out now. Sell the flat while it is in super condition, and you have vacant possession with no need to go through the stress of evicting anyone, and cut your losses. This is no time to be a novice in the PRS. Novices are going to end up in deep, deep trouble. Even long-standing professional landlords are getting out.
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Actually, it’s the best advice here. Do consider it, OP.
Thanks Perry
Do you say it’s going to get very difficult because mortgages are about to skyrocket or?
never do up a place too fantastic unless in a very high end area. waste of money and time . the tenant will not view it the way you do. Do it up to a modest standard in the majority of cases
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Jollymeister Not necessarily although there is a risk that interest rates will continue to increase. I remember when mortgages were (briefly) at 15%. The main reason things are going to get more difficult is that almost all society - the government, the media, and Joe Bloggs at the pub - are against private landlords and want things to be made more difficult for them. My family has been involved in the PRS for 60 years, and it is clear to me that we are regressing to an environment where only a fool would buy a vacant property and rent it out. And it was impossible (I really do mean impossible) to mortgage rental properties - there were no lenders in the market. Not one. That is what it was like before the Housing Act 1988 introduced Assured Shorthold Tenancies and then the likes of Paragon came along who were willing to write mortgages for buy-to-lets. The Renters (Reform) Bill, currently in Parliament, is abolishing ASTs. And it’s a conservative government doing this even though they were the party which actually introduced them in the first place because of the acute shortage of rental properties! In 1988 they wanted to encourage private landlords. Now it’s the other way round. The entire zeitgeist is anti-landlord and this is one of the reasons why a great many landlords are selling and this is restricting supply. That in turn is causing rents to increase (although obviously not in Derby to the level you want to see). In my personal opinion the current trend will culminate in rent controls, even though there is a huge body of evidence that these are counter-productive. What will then happen is that very few (if any) lenders will extend mortgages on rental properties. That will bankrupt many remaining landlords who have fixed term interest-only mortgages which they can’t refinance when the term ends. The most important factor is that there is not one political party who are on the side of landlords. It doesn’t seem very sensible to swim against a tide like that. Therefore if I was advising you (which I’m not) I would say that you have a property in excellent condition, with vacant possession, and you need to be very sure that renting it out is the right thing to do.
Colin3 - You have reminded me of the old estate agent’s adage - never spend money making your property the best in the street because there is always an upper limit above which houses in that street will never rise. I’m afraid that Jollymeister does not know enough to succeed in this game.
something like buy the worst house in the best street rather than the best house in the worst street. ?
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Perhaps OP could make this his next BTL!:
Hi all!
Thanks for the help.
I’ve taken on board the advice and managed to find promising tenants who are now in the process of moving into the property for what I was asking for!
It turned out not to be too hard, just had to give it a few days.
- J
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My instinct as a fellow landlord renting out property in a similar area of Derby is that you are asking too much. Darley Abbey is a lovely area - but it is an area more likely to appeal to purchasers than renters. You may appeal to short term renters while they seek property to purchase at that price - Derby always has people needing to rent while they look for a home to purchase as they move in to work at Rolls Royce or the University etc. But I can’t imagine many longer term renters committing to that level.
As other have said the “I’ve poured my heart and soul into upgrading…” is a bit off putting so I would delete it .
On the other hand do understand that the beginning of August isn’t always the best time to put something on the rental market and I would always wait a week before drawing any conclusions about responses - particularly in a holiday period when people may be reading he ads less often .
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Happy cake day! May you have many more.
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