They may not come to mind as the perfect tenants, but sometimes students can be better than professionals.
Student Tenants
You can convert one ground floor room into a bedroom with relative ease, thus turning a three bed into a four bed house. Students don’t need two reception rooms and this way you can more fit more students into the property and your yield will be higher. If you kit out the bedrooms with double beds you can up the rent a little bit too.
Student tenants are not as fussy as professionals. If the rent is reasonable they’ll be willing to put up with a seventies’ avocado bath suite or an older kitchen, whereas a professional might turn their nose up at decor such as this.
They are usually good with rent, especially if you organise it so the payments are for the whole term and due just after their loans arrive. You can also ask for a guarantor so if their rent is late, their parent or guardian will have to pay it for them.
Advertising is usually cheap as you can advertise for free in the students union, as well as asking the current tenants to see if they can find anyone interested for the next year.
Be Warned
However, for student lets there is usually fierce competition as you will be situated in a university town or city. Some places are saturated with student properties, meaning that you’ll have to have a great property in the right location with reasonable rent to be in with a chance of getting tenants.
As we all know, students like to have fun. And students having fun sometimes accidentally damage things. However, if you have sufficient insurance and a guarantor, you should be covered for this.
Some students aren’t great at being students and drop out of university. Depending on your contract with the students, either they will be responsible for replacing themselves and paying the rent while the room is unoccupied, or you will be.
If you’re going to take the plunge, then landlord insurance is vital, so compare quotes at http://www.towergateinsurance.co.uk/commercial-property/landlords-insurance/