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Female landlords prove there's nothing like a woman's touch
Flowers and wine on arrival together with flat screen TVs and broadband, with optional life coaching, sounds like a luxury spa but these five-star services are just some of the added extras provided by female landlords.
The number of women in the buy-to-let business has increased dramatically over the past 10 years and, according to the National Landlords' Association, they are revamping the sector.
A recent NLA survey of 500 women revealed the extent of their professionalism, attention to detail and superior customer service together with a new approach to a difficult market.
Over half (58 per cent) say they have upped their game to cope with the recession and increased competition for tenants.
To keep long-term tenants 63 per cent are providing a rent freeze, 10 per cent have reduced rent while 27 per cent are introducing added extras.
These include offering a free life coach and debt counselling, flowers and wine, free window cleaning, flexible payment schemes, flat screen TVs and broadband. Some female landlords are even learning new languages to attract non-English speaking tenants, others have decided to relax house rules by accepting pets and others have agreed to accept DSS tenants.
The research marks this year's NLA Property Women Awards, which recognise the success of female landlords who own and manage their own property.
Last year's winner was Yorkshirewoman Teresa Galley, whose rags-to-riches story impressed the judges.
Eight years ago, the struggling single mother from Doncaster finally managed to get on the property ladder by buying a partially renovated flat for 80,000.
Using profit from that home, she built an impressive portfolio of 15 houses and flats. At first she did much of the renovation work including the tiling, which she taught herself using a B&Q fact sheet. She is also a dab hand at fitting kitchens, plastering and labouring and has diversified into the lettings agency business after years of managing her own properties.
We talked to two of the Yorkshire nominees for Property Woman of the Year.
Shona Davison, of Sheffield, has five buy-to-let properties in her home city.
Analytical consultant Shona bought her first buy-to-let property seven years ago after a struggle to get on the property ladder down south.
"I was living down south at the time and realised I'd never be able to afford a place there, so I spent three years saving up a deposit and bought a flat back home in Sheffield where prices were lower," she says.
"It cost me 65,000 and the idea was to rent it out and sell it in a few years, using any profits to buy myself somewhere to live.
"But I met my husband and we ended up buying somewhere together. I kept my buy-to-let and that was the start of my property portfolio."
The couple now live in the city, where Shona sold the flat to fund a deposit on a run down house that had been turned into
three flats.
After redesigning and refurbishing the flats to include two extra rooms, she added value, found tenants and remortgaged the property.
"It was quite stressful. I managed the project completely on my own as well as working full time in a bank and planning my wedding."
Her mathematical skills didn't let her down. She paid 208,000 for the property using her 50,000 capital for the deposit and revamp. Once finished, the flats were valued at 370,000 and generated 1,340 a month in rent. She remortgaged and used some of the equity to buy a house that had been split into two flats.
Her five buy-to-lets are now worth 660,000 and her borrowing is 440,000 giving her a pre tax and expenses profit of 220,000. Thanks to falling interest rates and tracker mortgages, Shona, 31, who manages her own lets, also makes 2,000 a month profit in rent. After being diagnosed with myotonic dystrophy and having a baby son, Dexter, she is planning to buy more property.
"I think being a landlady is the kind of thing that fits in well with being a mum as the hours are flexible and I also hope to do some analytical consultancy work. Unfortunately, I have been diagnosed with myotonic dystrophy so I know I will be severely disabled in the future.
"This bad news means I am now more motivated than ever to build up my buy-to-let portfolio while I am young and still healthy. It can then provide me with an income for when I am older, and hopefully this will help me maintain some of my independence."
Although she has never had any bad experiences with tenants, she is aware that property is a not a fail-safe investment.
"My risks are calculated. Being an analyst helps and I put all the figures into Excel to make sure they add up and that's very important now. For years you could buy any old rubbish and get away with it because prices were rising, but now it's important to know whether you are getting a good buy or not."
Jill Healy, of Rotherham, has 50 residential properties and a number of commercial lets.
Jill is living proof that being a successful landlord could be genetic.
"It's in my blood. I was brought up with property. My grandparents had houses, as did my father. I was an only child so I was very much involved from a young age collecting rents.
"I was taught to show respect to our tenants and treat them as equals. They were even invited to my wedding, and that has stayed with me."
After inheriting a handful of homes in her native Carlton in Lindrick, she went on to build a mini-empire and operates using her instincts rather than conventional buy-to-let rules.
She provides housing for some of Rotherham's most vulnerable and needy people and her no- nonsense, yet caring attitude has given many the stable base they need to turn their lives around.
She says: "It started when we got a phone call asking if we could house someone who had come out of prison on licence and now we deal with a lot of tenants through the probation service and we have some property let to asylum seekers.
"I tend to work very much on inner gut feeling. Recently, I got a call from a girl who was desperate for somewhere to live. On paper she didn't look good.
"She had no deposit, was a recovering heroin addict on a methadone programme and had lost custody of her child, but I agreed to meet her and I liked her, so I let her rent the property. I went round for a cup of coffee recently and she's doing okay."
She has also helped tenants with form filling and dealing with the authorities.
"One of my tenants is a nurse from Zambia. She lost her job and had to go on housing allowance and I went with her to help her with the benefits office.
"The official told her she couldn't have any money for two weeks and I knew she could, so I was able to sort that out for her."
Jill, 66, is secretary of Rotherham and District Landlords' Association and is old school in the best possible way.
A former primary school teacher, she teamed a full-time job with her responsibilities as a landlady and only bought another house when she could afford to do so outright and mortgage-free.
"I used to go to work, go home and get tea ready for my own family and then go out and work on properties that I would renovate and let out."
She also manages all the properties herself without the help of an agent. Although the equity in her homes is substantial, she warns that being a landlord is not easy money.
"I work 24/7 and you have to expect calls from tenants even on Christmas Day and, of course, property gets damaged.
"Also, the rental market is completely saturated because of the buy-to-let boom and finding a tenants is harder. At one point If I placed an advert for a house the phone wouldn't stop ringing for three days."
She adds: "You have to be your own financial adviser, a social worker and jack of all trades. You haven't got to be afraid of putting your hands in muck and you have to like people."
But there are rewards. One tenant was an ex-convict who had just come out of Wakefield jail. He was also a talented artist.
"He did me a couple of paintings and I now have two very nice 'Constables' hanging on my wall," says Jill.
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