Buy a house and you don’t have to do a thing. You can close your eyes, and the rents will come in. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But don’t be fooled! Never ever purchase a property with a ‘tenant in situ’ without getting to know the tenants and landlord first. Recently, we have had a mixture of experiences thanks to more and more landlords purchasing in this manner.
In a less affluent area of Sheffield, we were asked to take over a property after completion. The experience was great, even though we were a bit worried about this. The neighborhood was a state, the house was great inside, and the tenants were very responsive.
On the other side, in a well-off neighborhood, we were instructed by another client to manage their property. Things could not be any worse as the tenant declined to engage. She refused to continue paying rent, and at one point, she slammed the door on us. We found out later that they were problematic tenants, and the landlord struggled to evict them, so he just sold the property with ‘tenants in situ’. The landlords have made this mega-expensive purchase and have not had any rent come in. They had to serve eviction orders.
As I said earlier, get to know both the landlord and the tenant when viewing these types of properties. You will get a good sense of what they are like during initial meetings and even on viewings. Whenever we look at packages for our landlords, these are the types of checks we do, needless to say, with both properties, we were not involved with the purchase.
We provide a complete package and advice on purchase and property management, so you deal with just one company. You are not a piece of luggage being passed around.
Are you considering getting into Property and unsure what the ideal Property is? Then talk to us—we are happy to always take your call.