Whether you are a landlord or a letting agent, renting rooms can be a real boost for your finances.
Although you might think you can only rent rooms in run down places which are in poor condition, then think again!
There are lots of landlords now who are looking at renting high quality rooms – for not much more than the poor quality rooms which will probably spring to mind.
On average room rents outside of London are around £70-80, more expensive areas are around £100 and for really expensive areas such as Guernsey or West End in London you will be looking at £200+ per week.
So as a tenant, you can rent for as little as £3,640 to £10,400 in the most central areas of London.
As a landlord, if you have a minimum of 5 tenants, that’s revenue of £18,200 to over £50,000. But don’t forget, you’ll be spending money on re-doing bathrooms and kitchens probably every two years, rather than five years in a property rental, so that’s an extra 5-10k spend every time you upgrade the property.
For tenants, make sure you don’t rent from a rogue landlord:-
Check with the local authority first if the property needs to be licenced
Ideally the landlord, even though they don’t have to, will protect your deposit in one of the government tenancy deposit schemes.
Check if the landlord or letting agent is a member of any organisations such as ARLA/NALS/RICs or NLA/RLA, you are more likely to rent a property which is legally let
Take the tenancy agreement to somewhere like Citizens Advice to make sure it’s a fair agreement
Make sure they have the right certificates for licencing if required, gas safety and an electrical safety certificate. They should also have good fire precautions such as fire blankets and a fire extinguishers.
Read our tenant safety checklist to make sure you landlord is looking after the property – and you!
For landlords, make sure you use a reputable site to rent your rooms such as SpareRoom.co.uk
Make sure you know what the local authority rules and regulations are around HMO licencing. Download the SpareRoom.co.uk FREE eight page HMO guide.
Check locally what the competition is like, visit properties renting rooms nearby
Read our landlord checklist for renting a room and how to analyse a buy to let property.
