X-No-Archive: yes In message , "tim (moved to sweden)" writes
I'm not selling and most certainly do restrict my choice of tenants. I always opt for purpose-built apartments with secure inside parking, minimum of two bedrooms, and controlled access, in prime positions such as on sea fronts, and no gas. Such flats are usually in town centres with shops and other amenities close at hand.
In other words I buy what I wouldn't mind living in myself. It's an expensive policy but it has always paid off because my flats are rarely left unoccupied for long. The wow factor of a panoramic sea view cannot be under-estimated. It really is a killer water feature.
As I once learned, houses are a pain in the buy to let market. No one gives a monkeys what happens to an unoccupied house, whereas neighbouring tenants in a block will gang-up on squatters and such like undesirables. Pitching the rent slightly below the market rate ensures that I get to cherry pick suitable tenants. They're usually those known to the letting agents who have good tenants on their books who jump at the chance of renting a secure, modern flat with a sea view. You're probably right about it not being a sellers' market but that's never affected me.
In the case of the tenant who gave my name when he had the meters swapped, he was a decent enough bloke who didn't quit leaving me with an unpaid bill. He was a bit prissy and felt that he'd had enough of the behaviour of pissed late-night revelling females getting noisily shagged under his balcony or on the beach. The young chap in there now loves it, saying that he's never had so much nookie. Someone tipped him off about the girls flogging the 'Big Issue' under the balcony who will do anything on a wet, cold, miserable day for a generous bloke who buys their stock.
I do warn tenants about the noise at weekend nights but most of them are local, and know of the problem, which is markedly less so now that Arun District Council have laid on late-night buses to shanghi slappers and their vomit comic breeding partners out of the town at nightclub chucking out time.
Thanks for your comments. Apologies for not replying to all of them.