continuancy of tenancy

I thought you might like to hear of a recent situation involving what is often bad news for a landlord - a departing tenant. A departing tenant is basically a lost customer to a landlord. Not only that, but it means that there will usually (if a loan has been taken out to fund the purchase) still be a monthly mortgage to pay - without the rent coming in to cover it.

That's why customer retention is important in this business. Very often though, even with the best customer skills, a tenant leaves. ..things 'happen' This means that the landlord has to act quickly to replace them - for obvious business-like reasons.

This happened to me, as I said. The tenants were in their early 60s and had been my tenants for a good number of years. the house is a 3 bed semi on a good quality Local authority estate - with about 70% of properties now privately owned. They simply wanted to downsize to a 2 bed bungalow nearby. These things happen.

I knew that this estate was well-sought after locally, and I also knew, via my local knowledge, that there is a strong market for such properties currently. so, rather than appoint a letting agent, or advertise in the local paper to find a new tenant, I decided to leaflet drop the houses on the 3 surrounding roads - explaining that a 3 bed property would soon be available.

I find through my experiences, that local authority estates tend to have strong communities - rather like everywhere seemed to have 20 years back and beyond. Many people have lived on them for years and have strong ties. Therefore many people seeking accommodation don't want to be far away from their ties if they need somewhere else to live.

I figured that by 'contaminating' the estate with a few leaflets that word would get around quickly on the grapevine. In 3 days I had 5 phone calls!

I managed to find a great tenant simply by visiting all 5 applicants and vetting them thoroughly. I wasn't desperate to take the first one who came along - I took the best of the bunch. Every potential tenant knew there were 4 others 'in the queue' - because I told them (in order to create a bit of a frenzy) this made them realise that I was the one in control and that they weren't the only potential new tenants in the picture for me.

I have managed to raise the rent £25 per month (£300 per year) above the previous rent, spent nothing on the house as either - it was in acceptable condition already.

The cost of this? £10 - to the grandson of the departing tenants - he posted the leaflets through the letterboxes for me.