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Guide to marketing your properties

Updated October 2023

Introduction

If you are the owner of buy to let property, marketing the accommodation is a high priority. Successful marketing, after all, is probably the best route to selecting and retaining the tenants that provide the rental income on which your business depends.

What does it take to successfully market your rental property, therefore?

In attempting to answer the question, this guide will look at:

  • the importance of knowing your target market;
  • what it is that tenants are most likely to be looking for in any property they rent;
  • the relative merits of devising and running your own marketing campaign compared with the alternative of instructing a letting agent; and
  • what is likely to be involved in running your marketing campaign, given methods that rely both on and offline.

By giving careful thought to each of these aspects, you may be in a better position not only to formulate an appropriate marketing campaign for the particular type of rental accommodation you own, but also to continue to run and manage your marketing in a way that maximises the success of your business.

Although every attempt is made to make this as complete a guide to marketing your rental property as possible, every let is individual, and every landlord is likely to encounter his or her own particular circumstances and challenges. You may therefore find yourself turning to other resources, too, to secure the best possible guidance.

Know your market

When you are running a business, whatever product or service you are offering it is important to know the specific market to which you are pitching those goods or services. Running a buy to let business is no different and it is important, therefore, to know the market which you intend to target as prospective tenants.

Your target market is likely to be determined by several factors, such as:

  • the location of your let property – not just the town or city in which it is located, but the particular area of that town or city;
  • the availability of other rented accommodation in your area, its general standard, rent levels and types of tenant living in it;
  • the general standard of accommodation you are offering, such as its appearance, state of decoration and quality of furnishings, fittings and appliances;
  • the rental income you are hoping to earn from your tenants;
  • the ongoing expenses you might incur in maintaining your property, the payment of any fees and taxes and annual costs such as landlord insurance – bearing in mind our expertise here at Cover4LetProperty in matching your need to safeguard the property with the insurance products available in the market;
  • whether you are looking for long-term tenancies or a continuous series of relatively short-term tenancies (such as if yours is a student let) – although your ability to find tenants who are reliable in paying the rent is likely to be critical whatever your target market;
  • the extent to which you want to be involved in the day-to-day management as the landlord of the let property – which may also depend on how close you live to the rental property or properties you are letting; and
  • your assessment of the likely success of the business relationship you can strike up with the tenants occupying your property.

On the strength of considerations such as these, you may be able to decide whether your target market is likely to comprise:

  • tenants who are employed in more or less professional areas of work;
  • students;
  • benefit claimants and asylum seekers; or
  • a target market that is a combination of all these or not necessarily determined by such factors

When choosing your target market, you might want to keep in mind that some insurers may not agree to cover property that is regularly let to particular types of tenants – such as students or benefits claimants, for example.

What do tenants want?

Closely related to the issue of choosing and getting to know and understand your target market is the question of what your tenants are likely to be looking for in any accommodation they want to rent. Knowing what your tenants want may be key not only to adapting your property to meet those needs but on an even more basic level may help to inform the particular market you may wish to target.

Different types of tenant – whether classified by employment, age or gender – may have different priorities when it comes to choosing the accommodation they rent. For example (and especially since the ongoing pandemic), gardens have become increasingly important as well as fast broadband speed for people working from home.

What tenants want is clearly a key to understanding your market and a successful pitch to your target group or groups.

Rent

This might prove invaluable in assessing the standard of accommodation most likely to attract given types of tenant and the level of rent that any group is prepared to pay.

You might want to avoid the temptation of attempting to maximise your business profits simply by setting your rents as high as possible. If you fail to attract and retain tenants prepared to pay such a high price, you may discover that the going rate is there for a reason and that successful landlords in your area are those that charge a fair rent in order to achieve more or less continuous lettings.

For similar reasons, you might want to maintain a flexible attitude when it comes to tenants who want to end a fixed-term tenancy early. Although you are likely to be within your rights to insist that the agreed rent continues to be paid until the tenancy agreement expires, a reasonable and more helpful attitude on your part is likely to become known to future tenants with whom you might already be establishing a relationship of trust.

Nevertheless, that is not to say that your relationship with your tenants is anything but a strictly business relationship. However tempting it might be to feel that tenants might become friends they in fact remain paying customers of your business.

Advertising your property

Advertising your rental property clearly plays a central role in its successful marketing.

Although you might already have decided on your target market and reached an understanding of what your prospective tenants are likely to want, you are likely to have two broad choices when it come to advertising your property and arranging to let it to tenants that have been found:

  • arrange the advertising of the property and the selection of tenants yourself; or
  • instructing a letting agent to take on these duties on your behalf.

The option you choose is likely to depend on the extent to which you want to retain a hands-on approach to your role as a landlord – or indeed the time which you might have to exercise such a role – and the alternative of instructing professionals to do the job on your behalf.

Acting on your own account

If you choose the active course of action and want to play a fuller part in your role as a landlord, advertising your let property is similar to advertising any other product – you want to reach your target market with a description that is accurate and paints the property in as favourable a light as possible.

Remember that your role as a landlord continues to require that you describe the property honestly and accurately, avoiding any risk of your running foul of the law on misrepresentation.

There are traditional ways of physically placing your advert – such as taking out a classified ad in the local newspaper, paying for advertising space in a magazine aimed generally at your target market, or even placing a card in the window of your local newsagent.

Increasingly, of course, landlords also take advantage of the power and scope of the internet in reaching the widest possible audience. There are several such portals through which you may gain access to your potential market.

If you are taking on the advertising yourself, you may also need to deal with every aspect of securing suitable tenants – everything from showing them around, taking deposits, taking up references, drafting and signing tenancy agreements, and conducting inventories at the beginning and end of each tenancy.

Optimise for Search Engines (SEO)

Ensure that your online listings are optimised for search engines. Use relevant keywords, including location, property type, and desirable features, to improve the visibility of your listing on search engine results pages. This can increase the chances of prospective tenants finding your property.

Photography

If you are marketing your property, then remember that high-quality photos of are essential for an attractive listing. Invest in professional photography to showcase the property’s best features. Use these photos in online listings on popular property rental websites, ensuring that your listing is accurate, detailed, and compelling.

Virtual tours

In a digitally connected world, virtual tours have become increasingly popular. Provide virtual tours of your property to allow potential tenants to explore the space from the comfort of their homes. Virtual tours provide a more immersive and interactive experience, enhancing the attractiveness of your property.

Highlight unique selling points

Emphasise the unique features and benefits of your property, such as a spacious garden, modern kitchen appliances, proximity to public transport, or a vibrant neighbourhood. Highlighting these aspects can differentiate your property from others and attract tenants seeking specific amenities or locations.

Leverage tenant testimonials

If you have previous tenants who were satisfied with their rental experience, ask them for testimonials. Positive reviews can instil confidence in potential tenants and give them insights into the living experience in your property.

What else doing it yourself involves

If you are taking on the advertising yourself, you may also need to deal with every aspect of securing suitable tenants – everything from showing them around, taking deposits, taking up references, drafting and signing tenancy agreements, and conducting inventories at the beginning and end of each tenancy.

Letting agents

Advertising your property and dealing with every aspect of tenancies on your own account may prove so time consuming – or indeed too complicated to get right every time – that you choose to instruct someone else to do the whole job on your behalf.

The professionals involved in providing such services are known as letting agents. You might instruct them to take on as much or as little of the duties of the landlord as you choose – although you need to pay the corresponding scale of fees for those services.

If you instruct a letting agent, the whole process of advertising the property, showing prospective tenants around, taking deposits, drawing up tenancy agreements and conducting inventories is done for you. Indeed, if you choose a letting agent registered with The Property Ombudsman (TPO) you are also likely to have the going market rent recommended to you when the agent takes on responsibility for marketing your property.

You might take a certain reassurance from the fact that TPO registered letting agents are required not only to adhere to the responsibilities imposed on them as a matter of law but also to rigorously adhere to the code of best practice formulated by The Property Ombudsman.

Managing your advertising campaign

If you decided to retain responsibility for marketing your property and dealing with tenants, managing your advertising campaign is clearly an ongoing process.

Whether you have taken out conventional advertisements in print or gone for online exposure, you need to make sure that you continue to monitor responses to your advertising.

If you have outsourced many of your landlord’s duties to a letting agent, there may be a temptation simply to leave the agents to get on with the job without any input from you.

In fact, however, the successful relationship between landlord and letting agent is likely to be one based on a mutual partnership where the shared objective is the marketing of the property and the selection of reliable tenants who pay the rent on time. Your continued monitoring of and input into the various aspects of the work being done by your letting agent may help to ensure that you get genuine value for money from the fees you are paying.

The letting agent’s role may be limited to marketing your property and dealing with tenancy agreements. If you are prepared to pay still more in fees to such a property management company, however, you may also have every aspect of the ongoing maintenance and repair of the premises taken care of without your day-to-day input.

Whatever level of service you agree with a letting agent or property management company, it is important that you read carefully and understand every detail of the agreement and what it does and does not cover.

Conclusion

The successful marketing of your rental properties has every potential for determining the financial success or failure of your buy to let investment.

The first steps in developing your marketing strategy are likely to involve getting to know and to understand your target market:

  • from what backgrounds are your tenants likely to be drawn?
  • is the type of tenant limited in any way by conditions imposed by your insurer? And;
  • what is the general background and mix of tenants occupying the private rented accommodation in your area?

As you develop your pitch to your chosen target market, it may help to ask yourself just what tenants are likely to be looking for in the property they rent. There are online sources – typically updated on a regular basis – revealing the results of surveys into tenants’ aspirations and expectations. But you might want to refine and develop the picture you gain about tenants’ wish lists by conducting your own first-hand research in and around the area in which your particular property is located.

When it comes to advertising your property, you have the choice of doing the job yourself or appointing a letting agent to market the let accommodation on your behalf.

Although the placing of advertisements through traditional offline media or through the increasingly widely used online portals may be relatively straight forward, when it comes to dealing with every other aspect of tenants and tenancies, you may find the job becoming considerably more onerous.

In those circumstances, you might choose to outsource responsibility for marketing the property and for managing tenancies to a letting agent.