How To Cut Costs on Your Property Portfolio

Renting out property can give you a great second income or even main income. If you have multiple properties in your landlord portfolio, it is advisable to reduce risk by taking out a multi landlord property insurance with multiquotetime a property insurance specialist. The product is specifically aimed at the buy to let market. However, you must make your buy-to-let investments work as well as they can for you to maximise your profit and grow your business.  Here are some great ways you could cut costs on your property portfolio. 

Letting Agency Fees

If you are using the same letting agent to let out multiple properties, then you should ask for a reduction in fees.  Whether they are offering you a fully managed service or simply finding you tenants, they won’t want to lose your income.  Therefore, don’t be afraid to negotiate with them when the time comes to find new tenants or renew contracts.  It may be cheaper to dispense with the letting agency entirety and manage the portfolio yourself, but this can be time-consuming, so it is sometimes worth paying the money to have someone look after your properties for you. 

Insurance 

Shop around for your insurance to make sure you are getting the best deal.  If you have a property portfolio then multi property landlord insurance could save you money.  This means that all your properties are covered under the same multi property landlord insurance policy, and you can get this for both building and contents insurance. Remember that if you have flats in your property portfolio your leasehold should cover the building’s insurance so make sure you do not end up paying for this twice as this is expensive and unnecessary.

Remortgage

If you have taken out finance to buy your properties, then make sure you are always paying the least amount for these possible.  Check your mortgage rates regularly, as these can fluctuate, and seek the services of a mortgage broker to make sure you always have the best deal available.  A broker may charge you money to set up the mortgage, but this can be negotiated if you are re-mortgaging more than one property. 

Taxation

There are two ways you can pay tax as a landlord.  As a sole trader, you will pay income tax.  This can keep things simple, however, if you are a higher rate taxpayer or your portfolio will push you into being a higher rate taxpayer, this could be expensive.  The other way to pay tax is to set up a limited company and pay corporation tax rather than income tax.  This can save you a lot of money, but it can be more complicated to set up.  Other tax issues also need to be taken into consideration if you have a limited company. For the best advice, you should seek the services of a good accountant. 

Expenses

Don’t forget that you have allowable expenses such as petrol to visit your properties or part of your phone bill if you have spent time on the phone sorting out tenants or problems.  Making use of these can reduce your tax liability.

Make use of these methods to reduce the costs on your property portfolio and increase your profit.