ASK512: How can I manage from afar? PLUS: I'm not ready for this big tax change!

0:01Rob Dix:Hi, I'm Rob.

0:02Rob Bence:And I'm Rob.

0:03Rob Dix:And this is Ask Rob and Rob.

0:06Rob Bence:Hey everyone, welcome to Ask Rob and Rob. This show where you get your wonderful questions in, we give you some heartfelt answers, some answers with effort and care returned to you for this wonderful format. And this wonderful format has been going for a long time now. So let's keep this show on the road. Let's get your questions in. Rob, can we get a quick reminder how our dear listeners can get their lovely questions onto the show?

0:28Rob Dix:We sure can. All you've got to do is go to propertyhub.net slash ask. That's propertyhub.net slash ask. You can send us a written question for our Sunday Times column or our favourite option, send us a voicemail. Then we can answer you right here on the show.

0:41Rob Bence:Okay, it's time for our first question. Let's travel over the border to South Wales and listen to what Shahid's got to ask us.

0:47Rob Dix:Hi, Rob and Rob. This is Shahid and I run a buy-to-let company in Swansea in South Wales. All my properties currently are within a 10 mile radius of Swansea. But I want to start looking at properties which are away and the high growth areas that you guys recommend like Derby in the Northeast. My main issue with it is that I'm kind of worried about how I would manage those properties. So as a local, I do have a letting agent and they look after all the admin side of things to my local properties. But if I buy properties further away in England or the Northeast, how would I go about managing and maintaining them and dealing with tenant issues that are so far away.

1:26Rob Dix:Thank you for all the advice. I've been listening to your podcast for about four years now and I thought it was time to get my first question in.

1:32Rob Bence:Shahid, first of all, congratulations on all the progress you've made. Get it to 10 properties is not an easy feat and also a lot to manage as well. Once you get past 10, the work really starts to compound. So you're right to identify that you You need a very good letting agent if you're going to look elsewhere. But this is fairly standard. It's just something you've not done before. But once you get through the process, I'm sure you'll be fine. What you will need to do is spend time, a good amount of time, researching the local letting agents to make sure that you find a great partner. And there are lots of them.

2:12Rob Bence:There's lots of bad ones as well, and that's the problem. but there are lots of good ones it's the bad ones that get talked about all the time but there are lots of good letting agents out there so you just need to spend the time to go and find them so in the easy start is just to look at the reviews because letting agents get hammered by reviews tenants are quick to jump on there if they feel like they're not being looked after there's lots of negativity online so reviews are a great starting place if they are very low then you can stay away i would not expect to find perfect because every company gets bad reviews and you know it's that minority of people in life that we have to deal with that love to jump on and share their negative thoughts even when they're being a bit irrational they exist they exist in all walks of life.

3:02Rob Bence:So it's not looking for perfection, but it's looking for the majority of people who deal with this letting agent happy. But that's the first step. You then should take it further and call them up. Call them up first as a potential tenant, not as a landlord. And see how you're treated. See how the interaction is. Do you have to wait for somebody to call you back? How long did you have to wait for that call? Did they even call back at all? Go through that experience because that's how they will be looking after your tenants then call back as a landlord you'd expect them to get this part right because they are trying to win business all the time but again just have a conversation with them understand their processes understand how they interact how they handle things when it goes wrong so who do they use for maintenance if it's an expensive sounding firm i wouldn't be too keen a local handy person well that's probably going to be a better option because it's normally better price so it's just going through that effort and then finally if it gives you comfort you can go and visit them as well that last piece of advice is optional but if you still need that extra comfort then you can go and meet them because you do get a lot from just meeting someone face to face you get a good read on people your gut will give you feedback your gut instinct and that is always worth listening to but once you've gone through all that process, then you eventually will find the right agent for the area you want to start investing in.

4:33Rob Bence:And they can be a great partner, not just to manage your properties, but they can also help you find properties as well. They want to manage as many properties as possible. That's the name of the game for letting agents. So if you say to them once they've started and they're doing a good job, hey, let me know about people who are selling. I'm always interested if there's a strong deal and here's my criteria. Not only can they be a great partner for management, but they can be a great partner for helping you source stock as well. So best of luck. I'm sure if you put the effort in, and it sounds like effort is something that you are prepared to do anyway by the amount of properties you've got to.

5:07Rob Bence:So if you put that effort in, do that due diligence, I'm sure you'll be a success. Good luck. Great answer. Let's see who can help out next.

5:14Rob Dix:Hello, my name is Jane. I'm a long-term listener to your podcast. Thank you very much for everything you do. I'm starting to hear noises about the making tax digital process, which doesn't affect me for another year or so, but I haven't heard you cover anything about that so far. It would be great if you could either, conscious I'm not really asking a question, but if you could either talk about that as a podcast episode or maybe cover it as to what we need to be thinking about doing now. Thank you. Bye. Jane, as you're a long-term listener, and since you asked so nicely, we can help you with this.

5:46Rob Dix:In fact, this Thursday on the podcast, we are bringing in a specialist chartered accountant to speak about exactly this topic. And I want to be honest, it's not just because you asked, although we are very happy to help you out. It's because quite a few people have asked and because landlords at large are wildly unprepared. It's definitely not just you. There was a story in the Financial Times recently about how basically, despite the publicity campaign that's supposedly been going on, most people don't really have a clue what's happening or what they need to do. So we're going to put all of that right on this Thursday's podcast.

6:14Rob Dix:So if you're listening and you have no idea what Jane is talking about, you've never even heard of making tax digital, don't worry because we're going to explain what it is, when it affects you, because it will affect a lot of people at some point, even if not immediately, and what you need to be doing about it. So I'm glad we can give you a nice positive answer to that question, Jane, and I hope you enjoy the episode on Thursday.

6:33Rob Bence:Well, that's just done for another week. We'll be back with another Ask Rob and Rob, same time, same place next week. So until then, take care, have fun. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.