6 Top Property Investment Tips

So, you’re thinking of investing in property for the first time. Before you take the plunge, here are 6 tips that might help you succeed.

1. Understand the Local Property Market

The property market is in constant flux, so you need to monitor and decide when the right time to buy is. This means getting to know about prices in the local area. You’ll also need to look at all the options on the market. Do you want to buy an apartment? Or a semi-detached home? These are things that you should take time to consider. Visit http://www.directpropertynetwork.com.au/perth to explore even more options.

2. Be Aware of the Work Involved

There is a lot of work involved in being a landlord. This is something that a lot of people fail to realise before they invest. But ignoring these issues is never a good idea in the long-term. It’s not just about buying a property and then waiting for the rental income to come flowing forth. You have to put in the work. You’ll be expected to carry out maintenance and address any concerns that your tenants have.

3. Buy Homes with Appeal

When you’re planning to rent out the property you invest in; you need to make sure it will have some appeal. There are many ways you can ensure this. First, you need to make sure you buy in a desirable area that will appeal to the kind of tenants you ideally want to attract. You should also make sure you do any necessary work to the property. If you wouldn’t live in it yourself, you shouldn’t expect anyone else to want to.

4. Try to Move Fast

As a buy-to-let landlord, being slow and taking too long to get the property you buy on the rental market can cost you cash. For every week that your property lies empty and unused, you’ll be missing out on cash. That’s why it’s so important to move fast and get the property rented out to a suitable tenant as quickly as you can. Of course, this doesn’t mean cutting corners; you don’t want to make costly mistakes.

5. Don’t Borrow Too Much

One of the main reasons why people fail when investing in property is down to the fact that they rely on borrowing too much. If you borrow a lot, and then the market sees a downturn in fortunes, the results could be disastrous for you. You need to think carefully when finding a mortgage for a buy-to-let property. It might be more sensible to save a bit more money and then avoid mortgages altogether.

6. Screen Tenants

The final step in the process is finding the right tenants. But this isn’t as simple as you might think. There are a lot of things that can go wrong if you fail to do the right background checks on potential tenants. When you screen them, you should get references from past landlords if possible. It’s also essential to take out landlord insurance in case something goes wrong.