Student BTL is one of the most rewarding, stable and productive areas of the market. Every year, some landlords and property managers fail to rent out their property in time. It’s not like the general population market. If you don’t rent out by the start of the academic year, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to rent it out for the next 12 months. Here are the five main reasons you probably didn’t rent out your property and what you could do about it.
Too Expensive
The main and obvious reason for why students may not have wanted to rent your property is simply the cost. Faced with competition from luxurious custom-built student communities, your goal is now to focus on value. Your annual rent review should look at whether the trend for rent in your area has decreased as well as increased. If you simply cannot drop the price, you should look at ways of making the property attractive enough to justify the higher cost.
Market Saturation
The second potential problem is not something you have done, but something you will need to do something about. An oversupply is never going to see your property rented out unless you change your approach. This could mean dropping the price or upgrading the property to make it more desirable as mentioned in the previous section. You could also rethink your sales technique. If it has been a while since you updated your Pads for Students property profile, then refresh it with some new content. This brings us to…
Poor Photography
You will be surprised at how a simple photograph can make or break interest in a rental property. Get this wrong and they won’t even send a query. Old, grainy, dark and miserable photographs on the Pads for Students website (or anywhere else for that matter) will have potential students skimming over your advert in favour of something else. Update with bright images that draw the eye including shots of some of the rooms, the garden and any unique asset the building might have.
Old and Tired Property
Be honest with yourself, have you ever renovated the kitchen? Is it likely the bathroom was fitted before your last batch of students was even born, or worse before their parents were born? 1970s décor worked in the 1970s but to millennials, it’s unattractive, dark and miserable. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to upgrade the home’s facilities, they just want modern.
Quality Perception
All of the above attributes accumulate into a perception of the quality of your property. A property with drab interiors in a poor location that isn’t advertised properly in a market filled with choices will not experience much interest unless the price is right. Finding the balance is about looking at local conditions and providing value for the stretched student budget.