Hey guys welcome back
For those who don’t already know, I am James Bennett, The Property Coach.
I hope that you are all keeping well, I am here today to highlight the differences between going direct to vendor vs using estate agents to source your Rent to Rent deals
Now, if you are thinking of starting a property investing business there are many options you can take but Rent to Rent has to be the best way to start, and right now is certainly the best time to get involved
There is a massive demand at the moment for affordable living and the holiday market is about to explode so whatever way you choose to go whether it be HMO or holiday lets then you are going to need to know the best ways to secure the properties.
There are 2 main ways to do this,
You can either use Rightmove to locate the property and then go through the estate agents to secure the deal (which I recently posted another blog to show you how to do this way but I will still go through this briefly today), or you can go directly to the landlord yourself
Option 1
Estate Agents
You can go through the agents, and this is by far the most common way to do things as there are thousands of deals available at your fingertips to view online via the likes of Rightmove and Zoopla, etc.
It is easy to locate and work out the profits that can be made this way as all the information is readily available but this way has a rather large hurdle in your way and that’s the estate agents themselves
When explaining to them what you are doing, they always seem to think you are trying to do them out of a job by you managing the property instead of them
It then becomes down to you to put in a good reason and explain to them how the Rent to Rent method works and how it can benefit all parties involved
The Rent to Rent method certainly does benefit all parties involved just sometimes it is hard to get them to listen if they haven't heard about Rent to Rent before
9 times out of 10 when you call an estate agent the call or inquiry will get picked up by someone, like the letting agent who is simply an employee of the company and they are not the decision-maker
Now, normally, if you are simply letting a property on an AST this person would be ideal but when we are trying to put across our business model that uses company let agreements this person just finds it easier to say no as they don’t understand what you are proposing
So, what you need to do is get in touch with the decision-maker, either the company owner or the branch manager, etc, this is where you will speak to the people who can really help you, but, trying to get hold of this person can be tricky but don’t get me wrong it can be done and with time you can have them coming to you with deals
Like I said though when you are first starting out it can be very tricky getting hold of the decision-maker and this is why you need to be a persistent person and be able to confidently deal with people on a daily basis
Overall though, this method certainly does work and this is always the first approach we use when trying to secure Rent to Rent properties
So, what’s the next option?
Option 2
Direct to the landlord
Going directly to the landlord has many benefits over using estate agents
One of the man ones is it’s much easier to deal with landlords directly because they are the decision-maker, the buck stops with them, It’s their property and it’s up to them if they think it will be ok for you to manage it and there is no waiting around like you would have to with the estate agents to get in touch with the landlord as you are skipping that step completely
So that's already fewer hurdles to overcome
It's also generally easier to explain the benefits of what you offer directly to the landlord without having to pass information through the estate agents because you know your business model best and know how to pitch it to the landlord whereas the agents do not
There are a few ways to go directly to the vendor and this is where getting creative can certainly help
You can use Rightmove to locate the property and instead of calling the agent you can simply conduct a land registry search to find out who owns the property and then you can send them a letter directly rather than to the house in question, the reason being is because most landlords don’t live at the investment properties
The next way to go directly to the landlord is by visiting the local council of the area you would like to target and using the freedom of information act you can request the local HMO register that will list all the local HMOs along with all the details of the landlords who own them, it is then just a simple case of sending the landlord a letter of proposal
So, hopefully, you should now clearly understand the benefits of going directly to the vendor and how to do this
Although it can be a bit more time consuming and have a cost attached to it, it can reap massive rewards
So just stay persistent guys and whatever method you decide to use I wish you the best of luck and I hope you will all keep me posted on your progress
Also, if any of you have any experience with either of these methods please share your comments below
I hope you all have a great day
Thanks for reading guys
James Bennett
The Property Coach
So how do you get started?
To start your new journey in Rent to Rent simply take action
Immerse yourself in the subject by reading then find yourself a suitable mentor who can clearly guide you through the whole process from setting up your company right through to settling in your new tenants
You can easily get bogged down with too much free information and not know what to do with it and end up doing nothing at all
This is called analysis paralysis
So, if you are serious about getting started in Rent to Rent or just want a friendly chat to find out more then please book a FREE strategy call
today and we would be more than happy to assist you moving forward with your property venture