Several buy-to-lets to sell: Give us the lot and we’ll work out how to get the most from each

Good news for landlords who have decided it’s time to sell several properties: you don’t have to work out the best way to sell each one yourself.

More landlords are reviewing what they want from their property businesses. Some are leaving completely, while others simply want fewer properties, less work and more of their equity back in the bank.

The problem is that deciding to sell five, ten or twenty properties is one thing. Actually selling them can feel like taking on a huge amount of work, just at the time you want to wind your workload down, not up.

Different tenants. Different buyers. Different values. Different problems. And potentially months of phone calls, viewings, paperwork and chasing.

Landlord Sales Agency is looking for landlords with multiple properties to sell – and we’ll take care of the whole job.

They don’t have to form a neat “portfolio”, be in the same area or even be sold to the same type of buyer.

In fact, that’s rather the point.

Give us the whole lot and we’ll look at each property individually to work out the best way to sell it – while keeping an eye on what matters most: how much money you walk away with at the end.

Not every property should be sold the same way

Our starting point is to look at the expected sale price of each property as it stands and compare it with its potential sale price.

There can be a big difference between what a property could theoretically be worth and what it makes financial sense to spend time and money achieving.

In most cases, our advice is to sell as it is – the cost of evicting tenants and chasing the highest sale normally isn’t worth the gains or the risk of running empty property for 16 months under the new Section 8 rules for possession on Grounds 1 or 1A.

A landlord might be able to achieve another £10,000 by waiting for a tenant to leave, spending money on improvements and putting the property back onto the market. But once you account for lost rent, refurbishment costs, holding costs, selling fees and the additional time involved, chasing that extra £10,000 might make very little financial sense.

But that doesn’t mean selling every property the same way.

If there is additional value that genuinely looks worth pursuing, we’ll adapt the strategy.

That could mean carrying out some work before selling, negotiating a different arrangement with the tenant, waiting for a particular issue to be resolved or marketing the property differently to reach buyers prepared to pay more.

With several properties, the answer may be different for every one of them.

One might be best sold immediately with its tenant. Another could benefit from a small amount of work. A third might be worth more to an owner-occupier. Two others might appeal to the same investor.

We don’t need to force the properties into one sales strategy. We can make the sales strategy fit the properties.

One landlord, several routes to market.

We’ve specialised in selling landlords’ properties for nearly 20 years and have built a large database of investors, cash buyers and other purchasers looking for opportunities throughout the UK.

But finding buyers is only part of the job.

If properties are tenanted, we work with the tenants too. Some may be perfectly happy to remain with a new landlord. Others may want to leave. Some may even be interested in buying their home themselves.

We can sell properties individually, in groups or together. We can market to landlords, cash buyers, first-time buyers and owner-occupiers where appropriate.

Rather than treating every property in exactly the same way, we look at the circumstances and work out which route gives the landlord the strongest overall result.

The objective isn’t simply to put several properties on the market. It’s to get the most sensible result from each one.

Sell several properties without creating several headaches

This can be particularly useful for landlords who have spent years building a portfolio but don’t want to spend another year dismantling it.

You don’t necessarily need to empty every property first.

You don’t necessarily need to refurbish everything.

And you certainly don’t need to spend your time coordinating tenants, buyers, agents and solicitors across multiple transactions.

We project-manage the sales, deal with problems as they arise and proactively progress buyers through to completion.

If a buyer isn’t suitable for one property, we can find another. If a tenant needs help, we can work with them. If a problem appears during conveyancing, we’ll look for a solution rather than simply passing it back to you.

Meanwhile, rent can continue to be collected for the majority of the sales process rather than landlords automatically creating several empty properties – and several sets of bills – before they have buyers.

You don’t have to sell everything

Selling multiple properties doesn’t necessarily mean selling your entire portfolio either.

Many experienced landlords simply reach the point where they want to make their business smaller and easier to manage.

You might want to sell the properties producing the lowest returns, dispose of those furthest from home, release equity, reduce borrowing or simply keep the handful you’d happily own for another ten years.

And having several properties to look at can create more options, not fewer.

Rather than asking, “What’s the best way to sell my portfolio?”, we can look at each property and ask, “What’s the best thing to do with this one?”

Sometimes the answer will be to get it sold as quickly and simply as possible.

Sometimes it will be worth doing more.

Our job is to know the difference.

Got several properties you’d like to sell?

Give Landlord Sales Agency the list.

Tell us which properties you’re thinking about selling, where they are, whether they’re tenanted and roughly what you’d like to achieve.

We’ll look at what they’re likely to sell for now, what they could potentially sell for with a different strategy, and whether the difference is worth pursuing.

Then we’ll work out the most appropriate route for each one.

Whether that’s three properties or three hundred, we’d like to hear from you.