How to find good tenants

Renting out a property can be a profitable venture, but finding the right tenant is key to ensuring a smooth, trouble-free experience.

Here’s our guide on how to find good tenants, along with tips for ensuring compliance with letting agent standards and the landlord code of practice.

Friends and friends of friends – proceed with caution

Renting to a friend or a friend’s acquaintance can seem like an appealing shortcut. It saves on advertising, reduces the need for showing the property to strangers, and might even tempt you to skip formal checks like referencing. While this might appear ideal—especially for first-time landlords—it’s essential to weigh the risks carefully.

Without properly advertising your property, you might miss out on achieving the best possible rental rate or even the current market value. Moreover, in Scotland, new legislation restricts the amount landlords can raise rents between tenancies. This means the rent you set now could affect your long-term profitability.

It’s also common to relax standards when renting to friends, thinking “everything will be fine.” However, skipping crucial steps like compliance checks, reference verification, drawing up a tenancy agreement, taking a deposit, conducting inventories, and arranging maintenance inspections can lead to significant issues down the road.

While things may work out smoothly, if they don’t, you could face financial loss, damage to friendships, or even legal complications. Following a structured process is critical to protect both your investment and relationships.

How and where to advertise

To attract the best tenants, it’s essential to advertise your property strategically. There are many online platforms available, but where you advertise should depend on the type of tenant you’re targeting. For example:

• Young professionals: Showcase modern features, fast internet, and nearby leisure options.
• Students: Highlight proximity to universities and public transport.
• Families: Emphasize good schools, parks, and local amenities.

At HomeForce Property Management, we ensure your property is advertised in the right places, using targeted language that appeals to your ideal tenants. Highlighting the property’s best features based on your target audience will help you find the right match.

Validating potential tenants

Once you start receiving applications, it’s important to vet tenants thoroughly. There are both informal and formal ways to assess suitability:

• Informal assessments: Pay attention to how prospective tenants communicate in emails, their behaviour during viewings, and how they respond to questions.
• Formal checks: These include verifying affordability, seeking references from employers and previous landlords, and securing a guarantor where necessary.

Although no system guarantees a flawless tenant, the thorough checks and experience of a professional property management company, like HomeForce, can significantly reduce the risks. Our process ensures you secure a responsible, trustworthy tenant who is likely to take good care of your property.

Setting clear ground rules

Once you’ve found the right tenant, it’s easy to assume your work is done. However, setting clear expectations from the start is crucial for a successful tenancy. At HomeForce Property Management, we make sure tenants fully understand the rules and their responsibilities from day one.

We have face-to-face meetings with new tenants and provide a detailed welcome pack. This includes instructions for emergencies and non-urgent maintenance requests, information on how their deposit is handled, and clear guidelines on what could lead to deposit deductions. We also discuss how they should leave the property at the end of the tenancy. This open communication sets the foundation for a positive landlord-tenant relationship, ensuring clarity and preventing misunderstandings.