Advice For Investors And Landlords

Despite both selling and letting properties, investment is very much at the core of Cairn’s business.

We’re regularly approached by investors looking for us to help them source and let out a property on their behalf, especially for the HMO market.

But we don’t just specialise in just sourcing and renting the properties out. We can develop, and manage them on behalf of our clients too.

In fact, as we manage a wide range of properties, we’re always on the lookout for relevant information which may be beneficial for our investors and landlords, allowing us to offer up to date and valuable advice to them. We came across such information this week.

On Wednesday, Property Reporter published an article based around landlords who rent to students.

The article reported that actually, on the whole, students are satisfied with the accommodation made available to them, although the number of satisfied students has fallen slightly year on year.

The slight dip in satisfied students could be down to a number of factors, such as higher expectations, after all, as technology improves we expect more.

In fact, in a study, What Students Seek, carried out by Glide, discovered that when it comes to extras, 82% of participants regard fast broadband access to be the number one benefit, which is up from 51% last year.

Other extras which were identified as good selling points were; good storage, rooms with a double bed, and properties with en-suite facilities. Valuable information for those looking to buy to let.

However, the biggest factor for students looking to rent accommodation is still price. The article reports that it is: “important that landlords and letting agents price their properties competitively.”

The article went on to say:

“The report revealed that across the country the average weekly rent for students is £95, however, landlords and letting agents should market their properties in line with their local average, over a third of students (37.1%), rated their weekly rent as bad value for money.”

And according to the the Property Reporter, the average weekly rent in Scotland is between £90 and £100 per week.

There’s certainly some food for thought here, but there’s one more point we’d like to touch on is marketing.

When trying to target students to market your property to, it make sense to use platforms that they use. Make use of social media; platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can be very powerful.

Twitter in particular allows you to search for those looking for properties in certain locations, giving you the opportunity to research which areas have the greatest demand. Very useful indeed.

Here, we’ve only touched on a small portion of factors which should be considered when thinking about investing in a buy to let property, or if you’re even already a landlord. If you’d like to learn more, as well as find out how Cairn can help you cover all these bases please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

You can visit our website, drop us an email, or call us on: 0141 270 7863. In addition, you’ll also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.