Give landlords a break.
That seems to be the message following recent research by Saga Home Insurance.
The study shows that a majority of tenants actually rated their landlords as good or excellent – despite the negative press landlords as a whole seem to receive on a daily basis.
This is encouraging stuff. I always like it when media myths are debunked. In my experience at InventoryBase we almost always find landlords to be conscientious and fair. At the end of the day being a ‘bad’ landlord just doesn’t make any sense. At the very least you’ll quickly develop a reputation that could damage your business interests -and at the very worst you could end up with tenants getting injured if your property is not up to safety standards.
In films and books landlords are historically villains, squeezing down on the heroes until they are forced from their homes. Landlords are depicted as money grabbing and ruthless. It’s a shame really as in my experience it’s an undeserved reputation.
Hopefully this recent survey will help to change the tide when it comes to the UK’s perception of landlords. It’s fair to say that some aren’t as ethical as they must be and that has to stop, but it’s not fair to tarnish the whole industry because of their wrongdoing.
If you’re a landlord you will always have an uphill struggle when it comes to your reputation – so it all comes down to what sort of landlord you want to be. As a result of this research Saga have released a free guide to being an ethical landlord which you can download here