Good landlords use these tips before viewings

Now that you’ve used our services at before viewings and you are getting multitudes of enquiries from potential tenants. Here are some tips to help you find the best tenant, save you time and use less effort.

As a private landlord it is important that you have a good feeling about the prospective tenant. You will already have an idea of the type of tenant that would be the best fit for your property. With that in mind you can design qualifying and screening questions to ask before arranging a viewing. This will avoid time wasters and highlight any dealbreakers.

Qualifying questions ensure that the prospective tenant meets the minimum requirements. Such as affordability, move dates, household size etc. Examples include

• What is your household income?

• Who would be moving in with you?

• When do you need to move in by?

• Do you have your own furniture?

• What length of contract are you seeking?

While screening questions are about how ideal the tenant will be. Examples of this are:

• What do you do for employment and where is it located?

• Are you sharers or a family unit?

• Do you smoke?

• Why are you moving?

• Do you have pets? If so, what type of pet and how many?

During this call or email exchange it is best to style these questions into a conversation. This will make it flow easier and put the prospective tenant at ease rather them making them feel like there are being asked 21 questions.

Bonus tip: This may also be a perfect time to draw attention to anything obvious about the home that may put a few (not all) prospective tenants off i.e. public transport is considerably far. Don’t then forget to offer the solution like there is a driveway or that the walk past the park to the train station is beautiful. This can be a positive thing to do to save time and frustration for you and the viewer. The future tenant needs to like the property as much as you like them.

If you cannot cover all these questions in the initial conversation, ask the ones that are most important to you and leave the remaining questions for the viewing. This initial conversation will help give you a good gut feeling for the type of tenant they might be.