If you’re a landlord, or you want to become a landlord, choosing who you’re going to rent to is an important task to do. That’s because the marketing you have to do as well as what you need to provide is going to change depending on what demographic you’re renting to – families are going to be looking for different things compared to students, for example.
Your first thought might be that students would be a bad idea, it might be that that’s exactly the right group of people to rent to – there are actually a number of excellent reasons to choose them. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more.
Consistent Demand
One of the biggest issues for landlords is that there can be times when their properties lie empty, and that means they’re not making any money. In fact, it’s likely that the property will be costing money instead because the landlord will, in a lost of cases, at least, have to continue to pay for the mortgage.
When it comes to student accommodation, however, there’s very little risk of the place having to sit empty for long periods of time without any rental income being paid because there are so many students who need somewhere to live each academic year. When you think about it, thousands of students start their university and college life every September, and many of them will need somewhere to live, so you’ll have a steady stream of potential tenants. Unlike other demographics where the housing need can change depending on various other factors, student accommodation is always going to be needed.
Higher Rental Profits
If you compare a standard rental property’s potential income with student accommodation, you’ll see that it’s the latter that can generally offer more profits – what’s known as a higher rental yield. If nothing else, that has to be a good reason to at least consider renting out student accommodation – you’ll make more money.
The reason is that while in a standard rental property you’ll have one person, a couple, or a family, and they’ll all pay one rental charge, when you have student accommodation, you’ll have multiple people in the property, and they’ll all be paying rent. In other words, you get a lot more income from one property if you rent to students.
Guaranteed Rent Payments
Your first thought might be that students might not always pay their rent – they won’t be working full-time, for one thing, and they’re only just starting to navigate the world by themselves, so paying their rent on time is a new thing for them, and easy to get wrong.
Although that might be true (it is a generalization, though, and it’s going to very much depend on the individual), the fact is that when you rent to students you’ll still have guaranteed rent payments because their parents or guardians will sign as guarantors. In that way, someone is always going to pay the rent, so you don’t have to worry about it.