Letting Guide

The achievable rental value of your property is determined by many factors including location and number of bedrooms, local services and amenities, the cosmetic appearance and overall condition of the property.

HouseLet will advise you on a realistic rental value taking all these factors into consideration together with the current state of the local market. We will then outline an appropriate letting strategy for your property.

We will advise you on whether to let your property furnished or unfurnished. Furnished properties will give a better visual impression to the prospective tenants on how the property will look, making it more likely to rent quicker and sometimes at a higher price. However, the downside is that offering the property furnished will increase costs over time as wear and tear necessitate replacing the furniture.

You must provide white goods as a minimum (washing machine, cooker and fridge freezer) if letting the property unfurnished.

Flexibility is key as this will broaden the appeal of the property to prospective tenants as individual requirements vary. Anything surplus to requirements should be removed and placed into storage if need be.

Finally, if you need a BER we will organise it for you and we will ensure your property is compliant with minimum standards with regards health & fire safety.

All our properties are advertised through the HouseLet website, Daft, social media and our shop window. We also use cutting edge technology to produce Virtual Property Tours and to conduct shared Virtual Tours of our live properties. The Virtual Tour is accompanied by a 3D Model & Floor Plan which gives prospective tenants the real viewing experience without ever having to visit the property in person. As a result, we have reduced turnaround times and opened our clients up to the international corporate market.

At HouseLet, we never believed in group viewings. We show properties on an appointment only basis. On receiving an enquiry, we pre-screen each applicant to establish whether they fit the profile we are after.

We can also facilitate Virtual Viewings for applicants who are outside of the country or unable to travel to a physical viewing. Whether in person or virtually, our goal is the same, to secure a tenant that will look after your property as if it were their own.

Once we receive an offer, we will relay that information to you together with detailed information on the potential tenants. If the offer is not in line with what we had aimed for we will negotiate on your behalf.

We then check their situation, employment status, who is intending to move in, and how long they are looking to rent for. We will evaluate whether this is in line with your goals and make a recommendation. As the Landlord, you have the final say as to whether you wish to proceed and accept their offer. If not, viewings will continue until a suitable tenant is found.

At this point, we will ask for a holding deposit from the applicants and instruct tenants to complete our Tenancy Form and email it to us along with a copy of their identification. We will also commence the referencing process. During this time, viewings are suspended until all checks have been completed to everybody’s satisfaction. If the deal falls through at any point, we will re-commence viewings immediately.

All prospective tenants will undergo thorough background checks. We use a digital data collection platform to screen all applicants prior to agreeing to enter into a lease. Our referencing criteria was designed to help mitigate the risk of owning a rental property. The areas we cover in our checks are as follow:

• Confirmation of previous lease details
• Rental payment history
• Property upkeep & cleanliness
• Communication
• RTB dispute history

From our process we will have more clarity on their suitability as a tenant for your property. It is our job to match each tenant to each property, so we take this part of the process very seriously.

Once all referencing is completed and deemed satisfactory, we then ask the tenants to pay their first months’ rent and the balance of their security deposit.

Upon receipt of cleared funds, we will arrange for the tenancy agreement to be drawn up. Our tenancy agreement is fully compliant with the latest legislation. We also have a lengthy list of special conditions which we incorporate into the lease. We can amend these conditions at your request.

Finally, the lease will be signed by all parties via Electronic Signature. All deposits are held in our client deposit account.

For managed properties, we use a software to create detailed, high resolution, photographic inventories. On completion, this inventory will be sent to you and your new tenant and will also be saved on our lease management system. Your new tenants will also be given the opportunity to highlight their own issues within 14 days or the inventory will be locked down. We also issue all new tenants with our Tenancy Guide which acts as a point of reference throughout their tenancy.

Once all funds have been transferred and documentation complete the tenants will be handed keys. If the property is managed, we will also retain a set of coded keys at our offices. Utility readings will be taken prior to move in and they will be changed into the new tenants’ names. Finally, we register the property with the RTB. For managed property, we handle all necessary correspondence with the RTB.

The work does not stop when you secure the right tenant. Tenancies need to be managed correctly. Looking after a rented property is easy when you have responsible tenants and live locally. However, if anything does go wrong, from a boiler breaking down to a tenant losing their job it can get very stressful. And the onus is on you as the Landlord to respond with a solution.

There is also a mountain of legal obligations, with seemingly more forms to complete every day. Let us take the strain and manage your property for you. We can ensure that you’re protected in every way and we’ll work hard to make sure you’re not out of pocket financially. If you don’t get paid we don’t get paid.