Investing in property is not an easy process with lots of complex issues to deal with and a massive amount to learn about tenant finding and renting. But the beauty about the internet is that there are millions of websites out there offering help and advice on every subject you could possibly think of, so you can learn the majority of what you need to know from the comfort of your own home. Having said that I found that there is very little information on the internet telling you how to get real live tenants into your properties. There is of course the obvious option of using a letting agent or estate agent, but after that there appears to be very little that you can do to help yourself. This means that landlords are left with little choice but to pay letting agents for the privilege of being one of hundreds of landlords on their books. I am not saying that the services offered by letting agents are a waste of time, in fact most of the ones that I have used have proved to be extremely useful when it comes to managing tenants and their demands. But I have often found myself questioning their dedication to promoting my properties ahead of any other properties that they have on their books. And why should they push my properties more than any other, Im not paying them any more than any of their other landlords.
My solution to this problem was to try and find my own tenants, after all nobody will sell my properties more passionately than I will. But the million dollar question was how would I promote my properties myself and how would I find tenants myself?
I asked myself what I would do if I were looking for a property to rent and the answer was simple, Google!
Checking Google for search terms which directly related to some of my properties showed me that there is a massive gap on the internet for the sort of keywords that people actually search for. Although most letting agents have their own websites you will find that very few of them rank well in Google for the sort of words that get the most volume, and I suspect that most agents aren’t to bothered about this because they use the Holy Grail of online property sites – Right Move. But when checking terms like Birmingham Flats and noting where the Right Move site ranked it became apparent that even this monster site doesnt work for some of the most searched property phrases. In the case of the Birmingham Flats search Right Move only ranked 31st in Google, well down on the 3rd page which would mean very very few people would actually see the site, despite this search term attracting over 18,000 searches per month.
I realise that someone searching for Birmingham Flats probably doesn’t know exactly what they are looking for because this phrase is very general (Birmingham is a big place and flats come in all shapes and sizes). But even when I narrowed the search down to Edgbaston Flats, a phrase which still attracts about 500 searches per month, I found that the Right Move site was still firmly rooted on page 3.
So I got to thinking that if I were to get my own website ranking number 1 for relevant search terms then I would pick up a lot of traffic from browsers looking for exactly what I had to offer, a flat in Edgbaston. Adding an easy to complete form on the site would ensure that visitors would be able to contact me and it was then down to me to seal the deal.
This doesnt necessarily mean that you kick your letting agent into touch altogether, they could still play a very important role in the day to day management of your properties. But generating your own leads means that you should be able to negotiate a much better deal with your agent, even if you want them to do the viewings, after all you have handed them a potential tenant on a plate.
Once I had made up my mind that I needed to trial this method of getting new tenants getting my first website built proved to be relatively easy. There are tons of web design companies out there these days and they all want the same business meaning that prices are beginning to reach reasonable levels. I paid just over £500 for my first site and this included a Search Engine Friendly package to ensure it achieved the sort of results that I was looking for. It has just landed me my first self generated tenant and I am sure it will not be the last.
So whether you are a new landlord looking for ways to ensure that you have a steady flow of potential tenants for your property, or an existing investor wanting to reduce the amount spent on letting agents, then I strongly recommend spending a relatively small amount of money on getting your own website developed, you will soon earn your money back and some extra on top for your trouble!

Phil Bridgen is a private landlord who owns a number of investment properties in the UK, including a 1 bedroom apartment in Nottingham on which he has successfully trialled the techniques that he discusses in this article see http://www.springfield-mill.co.uk