Buying a house and then renting it out can yield a monthly/annual income providing that the rent covers the mortgage and any other bills such as insurance, utility bills (when empty) and the cost of repairs and maintenance.
One factor that affects the profit margins of your buy-to-let investment is how long the rental house is empty between tenants. These void periods cost you money as there is no rent coming in but the mortgage and other bills still must be paid.
In order to get a tenant for your rental house as quickly as possible, consider using a number of different marketing methods:- the more people know about (and preferably view) your rental house, the more likely it is that someone will rent it quickly.
1 DIFFERENT FREE METHODS OF ADVERTISING
1a Old-Fashioned Notice-Boards
Even in this computer age, notice-boards can still be a very effective method of advertising your rental property. Try putting a notice on boards at your work and ask a few close friends or family members to place adverts on their work notice-boards as well. Where appropriate, consider putting notices in the local library and shops - even in your local gym or sports clubs if permitted.
Make these notices as attractive as possible by including one or more photos of your rental house and use attractive colours and typefaces. For maximum impact, keep the advert fairly short so that your key selling feature stands out - for example, a heading such as "For rent: three bedroom house in quiet cul-de-sac near town centre" with one or two lines of normal text and contact details.
If you are concerned about the security of your rental property, then give the general location (close to town centre or village name) rather than the precise address and use photos of the inside of the house so that it cannot be identified.
1b Electronic Notice-boards
Sites such as Gumtree.com allow you to place an advert for free - or you can upgrade and pay for a more prominent ad.
Some employers allow you to send out emails about personal interests to other employees.
Sites like Facebook.com or Myspace.com let you tell friends or family that you don't see often that your house is available to rent.
1c Your Social Network
It may sound trivial, but telling everyone in your own social network (friends, family, colleagues and people who share your social or sporting groups) that your house is available to rent can be a VERY powerful marketing tool. If you tell 20 people and each of these people know 60 friends, colleagues, family members and social contacts then the chances are that one out of the 1200 people in your extended network might need rental accommodation.
For a few case histories of how powerful this word of mouth can be see advertising rental houses with word of mouth.
1d Your Rental Website
Sites such as Weebly.com or Webs.com allow you to create your own website free of charge. This website could be used as a backup to other methods of advertising by providing additional photos and room descriptions.
Note, however, that if you wish to use this website to attract rental enquiries without other advertising, then you will probably have to undertake some sort of search engine optimisation campaign in order to make your website appear prominently in the search engine results pages.
2 FREE MARKETING BUT COSTLY ONCE HOUSE IS RENTED
You can advertise your rental house free of charge with local letting agents; if they are successful in finding you a tenant, however, they will charge you for setting up the tenancy and/or take a monthly fee. Different agents charge different fees, and some agents offer a better service than others once your house is rented, so it pays to ask around.
3 ADVERTISING THAT YOU MUST PAY FOR
Local newspapers usually have a property section once a week; adverts in this section can sometimes generate enquiries.
As stated above, websites such as Gumtree.com allow you to pay to upgrade a free advert so that it is displayed more prominently.
About the author: Jan and her husband own a number of rental properties and have a renting houses blog.
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03022010
1. ADVERTISING: HOW TO SUCCEED
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