subject: A Few Starter Tips For First Time Commercial Landlords [print this page] A Few Starter Tips For First Time Commercial Landlords
It's not easy to decide whether being a commercial landlord is right for you, especially if you've never been a commercial landlord before - which is totally different to being the landlord of a residential property.A single bad experience - a tenant who doesn't pay their rent, for example - can taint your investing experiences almost before you have begun. Buy to let investment is not necessarily a path to quick riches and so you should be prepared to take your time and work at your business in order to make it a success.Void periods are one aspect that you should plan carefully for. There will be periods when your commercial property is empty - in between leases - and so you need to make sure you have the cash available to continue making your commercial mortgage payments even if you have no tenants in the property.As a commercial landlord, you may also be called out at unsociable hours to fix problems, but this depends what is set out in the contract as some issues will be the tenant's responsibility. The type of thing that may be yours as the landlord is fixed broken doors if the property is broken into and so on.Commercial lettings will need to have a high standard of maintenance in order to attract high calibre tenants, so this is something else that needs to be kept on top of to ensure that the property is desirable. This will also help to prevent the property from being empty.To be a successful landlord involves much more than agreeing a lease and ensuring the rent is paid every month. With rent costs being very high, tenants expect a lot more from their commercial landlord than they may have done in the past.But do remember that for every rental income payment that you receive, your mortgage is being paid for you and so it is one of the best investments that you can be involved with, especially for business purposes as it helps to grow your business assets more quickly than many other investment types.For you commercial property to be successful and always have a tenant, it's not just about finding a bargain property and sprucing it up. Location is more vital than in the residential sector, buy commercial property where you know there is going to be demand for certain businesses. In most cases, the easiest market to target are students and student areas, newsagents, off licenses and takeaways will all be busy and owning property that can attract these sort of tenants makes good commercial sense.Remember to obtain buildings insurance for your commercial property. Most commercial mortgage lenders, similar to residential lenders, will require such insurance to be obtained as a condition of the mortgage, and the insurance will usually need to be obtain before contracts are exchanged. Possibly one of the most important points, is that you will need to ensure that your tenancy agreements are clear in explaining where the responsibility lies - i.e. with the tenant or the landlord - for things like maintenance and repairs, decorating, gas and electrical safety and so on. This will leave no room for any finger pointing in the years to come, as it is fairly common for disputes to arise.
