How To Write The Perfect Buy-To-Let Property Ad And Find Tenants Fast

In order to attract the very best tenants, the very first thing you need to do is create a quality buy to let rental ad. Rental listings can be created using Landlord Studio and then posted on listing sites such as Zoopla, Rightmove, Facebook marketplace, and sites like Gumtree.

However, prospective tenants will only spend a couple of seconds before deciding whether or not to move on to the next listing, so the listing needs to be well written with great images.

Tenants aren’t going to sit and read through an essay description that lists every single feature of your property. You want your buy to let ad to generate enquiry, and to do this you need to convey exactly why the tenant should live at your property in a concise and persuasive fashion.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the top tips for creating the three vital aspects of your buy-to-let rental ad, so that you can attract as many tenants as possible as quickly as possible.

How To Write A Catchy Headline For A Buy-To-Let Ad

The headline is likely going to be the very first thing that a tenant sees when they are searching for a new home. Headlines should be catchy. They should grab the reader’s attention and convey enough information so that the tenant knows whether or not they want to learn more.

When thinking about how to write your headline you have to think about exactly what tenants are looking for and promote the aspects of your property that match those needs.

Generally speaking in your headline, you want to mention key features including:

• the rental price.
• the number of bedrooms and bathrooms,
• the property’s location,
• a unique feature that helps you stand out from the crowd.

This should leave you with a headline that looks something like this:

£1000/pcm – 3 bed, 2 baths, terraced house close to schools with large garden.

When writing your catchy headline, write down a list of unique selling points the property has, and then pick the most desirable of those and use that in your headline. Try to keep the headline short. You may also want to mention whether or not the rent price includes bills.

How To Write The Perfect Description For A Buy-To-Let Ad

When writing your by to let ad, you need to make sure you keep it concise. Once again, you should be thinking and asking yourself, what are prospective tenants looking for?

There are a few ways that you can break down and create your property description. Generally, we break it down in the following way:

1. Starts with the best unique feature. You may have even mentioned this already in the title. But if you’ve got an apartment in a city centre which has great views put that detail upfront. The unique feature that helps your property to stand out from the crowd and is a major draw. This feature could be anything: open brick fireplaces, beautiful balconies, vibrant gardens, close to parks, sea views, hardwood floors.
2. Next, you want to choose several descriptors that emphasise the characteristics of your property. For example, cosy, warm, intimate private quiet tasteful, exciting, were unique. There are plenty more once again as an exercise, it’s an idea to create a list of these descriptors that you think suit your property, and then select from that list.
3. Third, make sure you’ve outlined all of the basics as you did in the headline. How many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, what are the important factors such as a garden or office space. Does the rent include the bills?
4. Next, you want to talk about the area and highlight why a tenant would want to live in that neighbourhood. For example, is the property close to transport links? Is it close to the city centre? Are there lots of coffee shops, pubs, restaurants nearby? What’s the community like?
5. Next, you can also talk about some of the exciting features of the property. For example, if the apartment building has a gym and a swimming pool, mention this. The idea at this point is to make prospective tenants excited to apply.
6. The final part of the description is your call to action. This should once again, outline the rent price security deposit details, your pet policy and smoking policy, and the details as to how they can apply or enquire with your contact details listed.

Getting Great Property Photos For A Buy-To-Let Ad

Ads without photos get substantially fewer enquiries. Photos allow you to show off your property, give tenants a taste, and they act as proof of the description.

When taking photos of your property there are a few things to remember.

1. Make sure to have plenty of natural lighting,
2. Take your pictures from the corners of the rooms and doorways to make the room look bigger.
3. Include photos of all of the major rooms, such as the kitchen, living space bedroom, and bathroom.

If you talk about unique features in your description in your headline. Make sure to include photographs of those unique features.

You should be able to get reasonably good photos just using your smartphone camera. However, if you’re not comfortable with taking the photos yourself, invest a little money in a professional photographer.

Other important tips include staging the rental. Empty rooms in photos actually look smaller as you have no furniture to reference for scale. Plus, a well-staged room can help a tenant imagine living there making the property vastly more attractive, and thus increasing your inquiry rate and filling vacancies faster.

A Few Things To Avoid In Your Listing

There were a few basic best practices for your buy-to-let ad that will help to keep your rental listing short, snappy and engaging.

The very first is to make sure that you double and triple check your spelling and grammar. Spelling errors in a short description like this are inexcusable and signal to a potential tenant a lack of professionality. This can be immediately off-putting to prospective tenants. It’s also a good idea to avoid the following things:

• use of exclamation marks,
• very long descriptions,
• use of vague language,
• the use of all caps.

Using these is often a red flag for tenants who will see them, skim past, and move on to the next listing.

Final Words

It’s a good idea to include the energy efficiency of your property as a selling point. Lots of tenants look for properties that are more energy efficient because they know it’s going to save them money in the long run. Plus, with the EPC regulation changes coming into play as early as 2025. You will need to be upgrading your property to an EPC rating of a C or above. You should see those costs of raising that EPC rating as an investment to the property and it can be worth pointing out to tenants.

Additionally, make sure not to use any discriminatory language in your listing. You cannot legally discriminate on the grounds of race, sex, religious beliefs, sexuality, disability, or family.

And finally, make sure you select the right site to promote your rental property listing. There is a variety, including the big industry-specific sites such as Zoopla and Rightmove. For short term rentals, you will likely want to look at Airbnb and if you have bigger portfolios you might want to use an online letting agent. To post your own listings, you can look at Facebook marketplace and posting into local Facebook groups, as well as Gumtree and other classified ad sites.

‍