In my second article on a beginners guide to becoming a landlord, I am going to talk about how to minimise void periods when trying to let your property. According to this article, "the void period is the time- measured in calendar days - between the date of termination of the previous tenant, reposession, and the start date of the new tenancy.".

As you may have guessed, a landlord can losse quite a lot of money during this period so it is critical that the amount of time that a void period lasts is minimised and doesn't happen too frequently. The cost of a void period can easily run into thousands especially if a landlord has several properties.

This guide on how to let property, mentions that the purchase of a property in an area that has a huge demand for rental helps reduce a void period. This may sound obvious at first, but there are lots of landlords who buy properties due to their cheap price but if the cost of the void periods may have meant it was better to have purchased a more expensive property and kept void periods down. Installing features around the home such as LED wall lighting will help too as they are modern and encourage people to stay in a property or move in quickly.

It also mentions that properties which are near central places in the community such as tube stations, train stations, bus depots, hopsitals and high streets make a property very attractive to people looking to rent which all help eliminate void periods.

Another intersting fact to note is that in the UK, the average void period is under two weeks. If you can incorporate this into your budget then you have a better chance of becoming a successful landlord!