If you know of a reliable tenant then you are lucky. However, if you dont then you will have to find one and this is not an easy task. Finding and managing tenants is time consuming, hard work and can be expensive.
Using services of a letting agent in Edinburgh:
One of the easy ways is to advertise your property on good property websites in Edinburgh. This will make all interested tenants contact you. On the other hand you can use the services of a good letting agent. This will save you from handling calls, responding to emails, staying for viewings and showing potential tenants around your property. The letting agent will not only find a tenant for you but also create a good tenancy agreement and assess the rent of the property by doing a market research. The agent will check the tenants employment, credit status and previous history as tenant to see if he is the perfect tenant for you.
Meeting with the agent:
Whenever you meet a particular letting agent you should make it a point to ask him in detail of all the services that he will provide you in the fee he is charging you. It is very important that you should not hire an agent just because he charges the lowest fees to find a tenant for you or because he will get the highest rent for you. Instead you must always ask for the services. For example some of the letting agents will include making an inventory in their regular fee while others will charge extra for this.
You should explain the letting agent very clearly as to the type of tenant you will prefer. If you dont want pets in your property then you should inform this to the letting agent so that he finds a tenant who agrees to this condition. If having a tenant who smokes is an issue then you should inform this to the agent. In short you can layout a structure of your ideal tenant in front of the agent and then his job will be to find the one closest to it.
Once you find the perfect tenant then the agent, tenant and the landlord will decide on a move in date. On this date the agent will have the tenancy agreement signed and ensure that the deposit and first months rent is handed over to the landlord.