Why Landlords Should Conduct a Property MOT

It pays to sit down once a year and review how your buy-to-let is performing and flag up any potential issues looming on the horizon. A two-minute read.

We’re all familiar with an MOT, an annual check-up to ensure your car is safe and good to go for the year ahead. Well, let’s apply the same concept to a buy-to-let investment.

Even if your current tenancy is ticking along nicely, a property MOT can be a helpful exercise to ensure that you:

• … Continue Reading…

Estate Agent Myths: What Sellers Need to Know

How much of what you know about estate agents is really true? This three-minute read debunks a few common urban myths.

The digital revolution has given rise to several assumptions about estate agents, but we’re here to tell you they’re not true. It’s time to separate fact from fiction and debunk four myths about estate agents.

1) Estate agents just post stuff on the property portals. Anyone can do it.
Given that 95% of people search for their next home online*, any selling … Continue Reading…

A Helpful Guide to Selling Property to Pay for Care Costs

If you or a loved one need to move into a care home or require home care, you might be considering selling your property to pay for the costs. This is a difficult decision, and there’s a lot to consider.

It’s important to go through all the proper steps when considering long-term costs, and this article is not a definitive guide on what you should do.

Understanding assessments
In the first instance, you need to contact your local authority to see how they … Continue Reading…

Working From Home & Landlords

In our post-pandemic world, working from home (WFH) has become the new norm for many people. But as a landlord, you need to make sure your tenants are working in a way that doesn’t impact you negatively.

Most of us think of WFH as sitting in front of a laptop or doing Zoom meetings wearing a shirt and tie with pyjama bottoms. However, there’s been a boom of small businesses cropping up, many of them based in flats and houses all … Continue Reading…

Why Sellers Should Use Good-Quality Property Photos

One of the golden rules of property selling is not to skimp on photography. And you don’t have to take our word for it – look at the results of a recent survey of home buyers.*

A survey of 1,300 people who had purchased a property within the past six months revealed three critical things:

1) Photography creates a powerful first impression (and we all know first impressions count). 93% of respondents said they formed an opinion of a home based on … Continue Reading…

Top Tips for Successful Property Inspections

Inspections are a key part of managing a tenancy so it’s imperative that landlords get them right. Here are some top tips to ensure landlords don’t miss a thing.

We’ve all heard the horror stories about nightmare tenants who trash a rental property, leaving the landlord up to their neck in repair bills and legal costs. Or maintenance issues that were left and became problematic.

Thankfully, there are ways landlords can minimise these risks and one key strategy is to conduct regular … Continue Reading…

In an Active Market, the Pre-Qualified Buyer has the Advantage

The UK property market remains very active, though tempered slightly from the high rates of price appreciation and market urgency experienced earlier in the year. Most property experts predict annual home values for 2022 will have grown between 5 – 10 % compared to last year. Limited stock as well as active first time-buyers continue to push demand and pricing.

How best to win the competition as the ‘buyer of choice’ in this active market? One solution is to come to … Continue Reading…

The Interior Styles That Buyers Love – And Are Willing to Pay Thousands for

Here at Richard James, we’ve been telling our clients for years to ditch the clutter and get the décor spot on to secure a top sale. Well now a survey has proved us right!

The study* found that two in five buyers look for a property that matches their own personal taste in interiors. (The split was 46% of men and 36% of women, dispelling the myth that women are the fussier sex.)

Now, you may be wondering why buyers get so … Continue Reading…

Introducing the winner for Wellingborough

Richard James Estate Agents, Wellingborough have just won the British Property Award for Wellingborough, for the second successive year.

Their team performed outstandingly throughout the extensive judging period, which focused on customer service levels.

Richard James Estate Agents, Wellingborough have now been shortlisted for a number of national awards which will be announced later in the
year.

The British Property Awards provide agents throughout the UK with an
invaluable opportunity to compare the service that they provide against
the service provided by their local, regional and … Continue Reading…

Top Tips for Finding the Best Tenants

The secret to a smooth-running tenancy is good tenants. Here’s how to find them.

There are few guarantees in life, but we promise you this: let your property to a bad tenant, and your job as a landlord will get much more complicated.

Expect to be out of pocket (due to missed rent payments and damage to your property) and stressed (dealing with nightmare tenants is, to state the obvious, a nightmare!).

The key to avoiding this kind of turmoil is to find … Continue Reading…