Blog Posts
Doing It For The Kids: Building A Buy-To-Let Legacy For You & Your Family's Future
People will always need homes, which makes buy-to-let one of the safest investment strategies around. Property has stood the test of time as a solid way to create wealth and while nobody can predict what lies ahead, there are steps you can take to ensure you give your children a valuable head-start.
Number Crunching: Our Essential Guide to Rental Yields for Every Landlord
All you need to know about rental yields: why they're important, why you should track them, and how to calculate yours to stay on top of your buy-to-let business. Financial management is at the heart of every successful business and as a landlord, the rental yield of a buy-to-let can affect whether you buy a property in the first place. After that, it can help you monitor your investment's ongoing profitability and performance.
Moving Mistakes: Why Finding A Home Before You Have A Buyer Is A Big Risk
If you've decided you want to move, you could be thinking the same as thousands of other homeowners: there's nothing on the market, so you'll wait to put your home up for sale until you find your next one. We're right in the middle of a classic 'chicken or egg' situation, so let's look at how you can beat the supply shortage and open up that exciting new chapter.
Photography Secrets: Top Pro-styling Tips To Give Your Home The Edge
Given how important photos are, it is really surprising how many property listings have wonky, blurred or dark images. Good photos of your home are absolutely essential to help your property stand out from the rest and capture the imagination of potential buyers or tenants.
Is Buy-to-Let Broken? Facts, Figures and Future Trends for Private Landlords
There's no denying that buy-to-let isn’t the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago but is there still a place for small, independent landlords to have a thriving and profitable business?
Letting Agent Diary: Behind the Scenes of a Typical Working Week at Piccolo
If there is one phrase that sums up being a letting agent, it would have to be 'never a dull moment'. Aside from opening the office, making a coffee and checking new messages, no two days are ever the same. Every day bring a fresh challenge and even after over 20 years in the industry, there is always something new to learn.
The Story of the Complete Refurbishment of a Country Home near Salisbury
Many people dream of renting a beautiful country home and the demand for such properties is always high. However, large country homes oozing with character and charm don’t always meet the many requirements of lettings legislation!
Your Viewings: Should Your Agent Show Buyers Round Your Home, Or You?
Nobody knows your home better than you, but does that make you the best person to show prospective buyers around? The viewing is a key part of the selling process and its not just a case of taking people from room to room.
Bigger & Brighter: How to Make Your Home Feel Lighter and More Spacious
Light and space are possibly the two most important factors for buyers. In this blog we explore some simple tips you can use to amplify the feeling of light and space in your home.
Selling Your Home - Our Step By Step Guide
Despite what you might think, homeowners in the UK only actually move house on average every 23 years. Considering our national obsession with Rightmove and estate agent's windows, you'd think it was more often! If you're considering selling your house and you’re wondering how to find a buyer sooner, exchange contracts faster or even pick the best estate agent for your property, read on for our step-by-step guide.
Levelling Up Lettings: Should you sell or upgrade your rental property
While everybody agrees that energy-efficient homes are a good thing, the Levelling Up white paper released on February 4th has left landlords in the local Salisbury area and around the country with more questions than answers. The white paper aims to make the Private Rental Sector in England and Wales more eco-friendly but this is yet another expense for landlords.
Hesitant To Sell? Not sure if you should find a new home or a buyer fIrst?
If you’re thinking of moving, there’s never been a better time to put your house on the market. People have been achieving extraordinary prices for their homes, with the Government's official figures showing a national increase in property values around 20% between January 2020 and December 2021. With life-changing sums just waiting to be had, we can’t believe more homeowners aren’t jumping at the chance to sell!
Rental Arithmetic: Should You Be A Private Landlord or a Limited Company?
One of the biggest shifts in the property market is the trend for landlords to switch from owning their buy-to-lets privately, to buying them through a limited company. This blog is all about cutting through the 'noise' to see if being a private landlord or owning your buy-to-lets through a limited company is right for you.
Premium Lettings - How to Attract Professional Tenants
Professional tenants often have specific requirements when it comes to the specification for a rental property; the location, standard of accommodation, and outdoor space all need to be considered if you are a landlord aiming to attract this type of tenant.
Buy. Revamp. Rent. Repeat: Our Top Tips for Sustainable Lettings Success
There are many different models for buy-to-let but a proven winning formula is to buy a property in need of renovation, upgrade the specification, then release the increased equity to fund the next buy-to-let project. In this blog we give you our top tips for success.
2021 Rental Review & A Thank You to Landlords & Tenants
2021 turned out to be very different to what we had all hoped for. But to end 2021 on a high note, let's acknowledge the challenges that landlords and tenants have faced and look at what the future might hold.
Letting Trends 2022: A Landlord's Guide to Future Demand for Buy-To-Lets
Keeping up to date with market trends is the cornerstone of any successful business and being a landlord is no exception. Climate consciousness, energy bills and outside space are among the biggest concerns of tenants, while new business models are creating more profitable returns for landlords.
Tax for Landlords: Allowances to Claim, Efficient Expenditure & Easier Accounting
With the annual tax return deadline looming, now is the best time to start preparing all your paperwork to avoid all that late-night uploading on January 31st! Using the tips in our handy guide, you can make a start right now. Then you can use the Christmas break to collate your receipts, claim all your allowances and submit your return, well before the deadline.
Mid Tenancy Routine Maintenance Inspections
Many private landlords don't bother, but mid-tenancy routine maintenance inspections help you stay on top of repairs, maintain a good relationship with your tenants and reduce changeovers, voids, and wear & tear.
Signing Prescribed Information as a Landlord
The recent case of Northwood Solihull v Fearn & Ors has highlighted the importance of keeping up to date with legislation. Housing Law is incredibly complex and the smallest error can lead to significant financial penalties for landlords.
Perfect Portfolios: Maximise the Value & Magnetism of Your Rental Homes
Great tenants pay more money for beautiful homes, and you only have to look at new-build properties for proof that new price ceilings can always be set. Whatever the age of your rental property, our blog this week guides you in creating high-quality rental homes to keep as a long-term investment or to sell at a healthy profit.
Longer Lettings & How to Attract & Keep Great Tenants for Years!
Renting a property has become a more permanent lifestyle choice these days and tenancies are getting longer and longer. Every landlord and tenant wants exactly the same thing: security and stability. As a landlord, you want an uninterrupted income stream, while tenants want an uninterrupted home life.
Being a Landlord: Is Buy To Let Right For You?
Are you thinking of becoming a Landlord? Owning one or more buy-to-let homes is the dream of many people. The idea of passive income, financial security and building a comfortable retirement is an inviting prospect that, for many landlords, has led to a complete change of lifestyle and career.
Renting to Families: Our Five-Step Formula for the Perfect Buy-to-Let
Families are among the mot stable tenants you can find, not least because the process of moving home is so much more complicated than for single people and couples.
Hiring Contractors: A Landlord's Guide to Finding Tradespeople you can Trust
Whenever you ask someone if they know a good contractor, you'll never be far from a tale of woe: the plumber who never turned up, the electrician who 'bodged' the job; the builder who overcharged and left a huge mess!
The Niche Landlord: Perfecting a Lettings Formula for Repeated Success
Specialise or diversify? That's a big question for many landlords when it comes to expanding their portfolios, and if you look around Google long enough, you'll find arguments for both.
Essential Advice Before Buying a Dream 'Chocolate Box' Thatched Cottage
For many people, buying a dream home in the country means falling in love with the classic picture postcard look. Timber-framed thatched cottages may epitomise the quintessential English countryside home – but these types of homes don't come without challenges. If you have your heart set on one of these historic beauties, you need your head to be equally engaged.
Sold With Tenants: Your Landlord Checklist for Buying a Tenanted Property
As a fast and chain-free way to start or add to your lettings portfolio, buying a tenanted property can be an attractive proposition. Before you make an offer and start incurring legal fees, use our checklist here to ask the right questions.
Accidental Landlord? All You Need To Know To Make It A Success
An accidental landlord is someone who becomes a landlord by circumstance rather than by plan, and it can happen for several reasons. You could be relocating for work, moving in with your partner, or having trouble finding a buyer for your current home. Or you might have inherited a property. Becoming an accidental landlord is more common than you might think.
Five Ways to Increase The Value of Your Rental Property
The rental market has grown up. Tenancies are running for longer, and with stays of four or more years increasingly common, tenants have higher expectations around the place they're willing to call home. But which improvements make the most difference?
Letting Agents: How to Pick The Best One
Whether you've been a landlord for years or you're just starting out, finding a letting agent you can trust and build a long-lasting relationship with is a big deal. Letting agents will be competing for your business left, right, and centre, so how do you begin the selection process?
Rent Arrears - Finding A Balance Between Compassion & Collection
Although rent arrears are a hot topic during the pandemic, it’s far from being a new subject. That said, if the discussion has taught us anything in the last year, it’s that anyone can be affected by economic events: no-one is immune, however high their income.
5 Simple Secrets To Make Your Inventory Watertight
Inventories are essential to have complete clarity over the condition and contents of your rental property: without correct preparation, you could risk a costly deposit dispute at the end of the tenancy.
Deposit Disputes: Why do so Many Landlords Lose?
Why do so many Landlords lose deposit disputes? How do things go wrong? And how can Landlords do things differently to avoid issues over deposit disputes at the end of the tenancy?
How to Build a Portfolio of Popular and Profitable Lettings
Do you think it is possible to be popular AND profitable as a landlord? Perhaps you feel that one cancels out the other; that it’s a choice between hard-nosed business and being nice, but that the two are fundamentally incompatible?
Is A Managing Agent Worth Your Money?
It takes a certain character to be a managing agent: the job has a reputation as a thankless task with days full of complaints, emergencies, breakdowns and hassle. And if we’re honest, rarely does anyone call with news that everything’s just fine.
New Year's Resolutions for Landlords - Let's Get Organised!
From giving up smoking, to a change of diet, or starting a new exercise regime, now is the time of year when all sorts of new year’s resolutions are being made and declared. Health and fitness are the usual areas we concentrate on, but there are also things to consider in terms of your wellbeing as a landlord.
Professional Help - Do You Really Need a Letting Agent?
PROFESSIONAL HELP: DO YOU REALLY NEED A LETTING AGENT? Most people can do almost anything if they put their minds to it. You could service your own car or repair your own washing machine but are you the best person for the job?
No Vacancy - Keeping Your Rental Property Occupied
Vacant days are money lost for landlords but are void periods entirely down to chance and luck? Is there a way to influence the number of days your property remains empty? This article focuses on how to keep your rental property occupied in the long term so that void periods don't become a regular nuisance.
Do I need to have an EPC to rent out my house if it has a Grade 2 Listing?
One of the Government's key initiatives to increase energy efficiency in our homes is the MEES regulations but these have led to confusion when it comes to the requirement to have an EPC for older properties and those with a Listed status.
What is Landlord's Rent Guarantee & Legal Cover?
Rent guarantee and legal cover is often available as an optional add on to ‘basic’ landlord insurance. Landlords can never predict a tenant falling on hard times, losing their job or becoming ill and then not being able to pay the rent. This type of cover can protect Landlords against tenants failing to pay the rent for any reason.
Frequently Asked Questions About Letting Property
I never get bored of being asked questions about letting property! Here are just a few of the questions most commonly asked by Landlords.
Piccolo Property outlines the importance of the Inventory & Schedule of Condition
Landlords continue to ask “Why do I need an inventory? The property is unfurnished – there is nothing in it”.
Do we really need ‘real’ letting agents in this internet age?
If you believed everything you heard from online letting agents you might think that ‘traditional’ agents are a dying breed. Here are just a few reasons why in our opinion, good ‘traditional’ agents are better than the online equivalent.
Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020
On the 1st July 2020, new regulations governing electrical safety in rental properties came into effect. From this date on, if you are renting out a property in England, any tenancy you create or renew will require an electrical safety inspection and a report on the condition of the property.
WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS
WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS! The Office in Wilton has now re-opened and we are very much open for business. All members of the team are set up to work either from home or in the office so you can contact us as normal.
Is your driveway just crying out for a new car?
It’s not just houses you can rent! Take a look at the pros and cons of leasing your next car.
The Tenant Fees Act - A Piccolo Perspective
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 came into effect on 1st June 2019 and across the country letting agents have had to madly update all their documents to ensure compliance with the new rules.
Six Super Tips to Make Renting Easier
Six quick tips for people looking to rent a property in the Salisbury area.
Landlord Legislation Checklist
As a landlord, it is important to understand that there are numerous pieces of legislation which cover the private rented sector. Here is a summary of just some of the legal requirements for renting out a property in the UK.
Should I put the rent up?
As a Landlord you may be wondering whether or not to increase the rent.
Tenancy Deposit Protection - A Binding Decision
On Monday 25 January 2010 PainSmith has a case appearing in the High Court which should provide the first binding decision on Tenancy Deposit Protection under the Housing Act 2004.
