7 habits of highly effective landlords

Letting out properties may well be feeling tougher than ever, with legislative changes, inflation, increased taxes and Making Tax Digital to contend with. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going - by making sure they’re managing their portfolio as efficiently as possible. 

We spoke to some of our landlord customers to find out how they’re continuing to thrive in 2026 and beyond. Between them, they have a combined total of 60 years of letting experience, so you know these are some tried-and-tested tips.  

1. Buy properties people want to live in

Funnily enough, an effective landlord has tenants! Now, you never have full control of whether someone wants to rent from you, but you can set yourself up for success.

“The biggest tip I would give is buy a house you would be happy for you or your children to live in,” says Greg, a landlord from Yorkshire. “I’ve chosen to buy three-bedroom family homes in good school areas, and I think that gives you a long-term tenant. They’re part of the community, their children have stability in school.” 

That stability means slower tenant turnover, which means you spend less of your time listing and marketing properties - never easy work. And it gives you stable, predictable income for years at a time. 

If you’re thinking of investing in new properties, a cheaper property can be a false economy if it fails to secure you long-term, reliable tenants. One of our landlords asked the very valid question: “If you wouldn’t want to live there, why should you expect someone else to want to live there?”

2. Take the time to find good tenants

A good tenant takes a lot of the stress out of managing property, so many of our landlords recommend vetting tenants personally. 

Maya, an Edinburgh landlord, made the time to meet every one of her guests when they arrived at her two professional self-catering properties. “I’ve lived in tenements and you want to know the people, even if they’re there for a long weekend for the rugby or to see their kids perform in the festival. So I was always really hands on.” 

It gave her the peace of mind knowing her properties were in good hands, and it had the added benefit of attracting repeat bookings, as guests loved her warm welcome.

Ian, a landlord from London, likes to get a sense of his prospective tenants from the start. “Be a little bit more fussy,” he advises. ”You weed out the problem tenants. You’ve got to do your due diligence.”

Like Maya, Ian makes sure he meets his potential tenants personally, as well as getting references from their previous landlord or previous letting agent. Once they’re in, they get a direct line to contact him when they need to. “I don’t mind. If they ring me and there’s a problem, I’ll have it sorted the same day or next.”

3. Maintain good relationships with your tenants

Ian isn’t the only landlord to prefer direct communication with his tenants. Many of the landlords we spoke to find it faster to let their tenants message them directly, as they’re able to resolve problems promptly. 

Greg handles every email from his tenants himself. He opted not to use an agent, passing on the savings to his tenants. “Try to be as transparent as possible,” he says, especially during difficult conversations like rent increases. “We do everything face-to-face, we’ve always been fair.”

How does this pay off for him? “We’ve never advertised a property, the existing tenants have always recommended it to other people.” This cuts out a huge amount of work and uncertainty for him and his family, making tenant changeovers unusually painless. 

But just because you opt to use a letting agent, doesn’t mean you never talk to your tenants. Some of the landlords we spoke to use an agent to make sure they’re compliant with the various letting rules and requirements, but prefer to keep an open line of communication with their tenants. “Once the tenants are in, we’re happy to let them talk to us. If they have a problem, they WhatsApp us, and we sort it.” You can diffuse a lot of potentially tricky situations when your tenants get to know you. 

4. Keep your property and personal finances separate

When it comes to keeping business records, the trick is to make them as simple as possible. Ian’s number one tip is “make sure you’ve got a separate bank account. Don’t have anything going in or out of that account that’s not related to the business.” 

You don’t want to have to sort through all your personal transactions, trying to remember which payments were for a property to note them down for your accounts. With a separate bank account, you’ll know exactly how much you’ve spent on your properties.

Plus, a business bank account plays really well with accounting software. Ian has his property bank account linked to FreeAgent, so that all his transactions automatically sync. No manual data entry, it’s all there waiting for him. “Once your bank’s tied to the software,” Ian explains, “you can go through the transactions and you can allocate them.” It’s a huge time-saver, he says. 

Maya actually switched her business bank account to one that connects with FreeAgent, because she wanted to get rid of as much manual data entry as possible. “Changing the business bank to make sure that it had a live feed into FreeAgent has been an absolute game-changer,” she says. “I love that once FreeAgent gets to know you, it’s like, ‘Hey, we think this transaction is for this, is that right or not?’ And you just click yes. Or if it’s not, it takes literally five seconds to amend.”

5. Keep your records up to date throughout the year

Logging your income and costs for your properties is one of those tasks that can take hours - if you leave it till the end of the year. If you add them on a weekly basis, you can be finished in five minutes - plus you’ll avoid hours of frantic searching for receipts when it’s time to file your tax return. 

One of our landlords from Essex agrees, saying “the last thing you want to do is turn up in the middle of the next year and suddenly realise you haven’t done any of the accounting. Then it’s almost impossible to capture everything. If you do it as you go along, that makes it a lot easier.” 

Our Essex landlord does work with an accountant, but they’re there mostly to sort out his tax returns. He manages the day-to-day, like invoices and expenses, during the year. He’s also connected his Mettle bank feed to FreeAgent, so anything he pays for from his Mettle account is automatically added. “I get the advantage of him [the accountant] being a little bit cheaper for me, at the same time as him being able to see and keep up to date with everything that’s going on during the year.” 

6. Know the rules and regulations

Property rules are notoriously a minefield. National regulations change, different council areas have different letting rules… and you’re stuck in the middle suddenly having to become an expert on five different types of tax! 

Unfortunately, the alternative to understanding your responsibilities and tax rules is putting yourself at risk of unexpected costs, which can eat into your profit. One landlord said he wished he knew Stamp Duty rules when he started, as he got stung by higher costs than he was expecting.  

Greg originally wanted to set up his property portfolio as a kind of social enterprise. “We rent out to families, and we originally anticipated we would sell 50% of the house to the family. Unfortunately, due to policy changes and Stamp Duty changes, we can’t really do that now. Even for our tenants, the Stamp Duty on buying a new property is so much.” While he had to reassess his plans for his portfolio, he’s still in a healthy place financially, and plans to invest in future properties in Yorkshire. 

7. Get the right support

We’ve got some bad news: no matter how long you’ve been managing property, you’ll never be an expert on all of it. That’s why it’s really important you set yourself up with a network of information and good advice. 

Our landlords recommend joining local landlord support bodies and using landlord forums to stay up to date. One, a property investor based in Hong Kong, says “in addition to sometimes saving you local registration fees, they help you keep on top of local and national changes that may impact you.”

Maya is an accredited landlord and a member of the Scottish Association of Landlords. “Most of what I get from them is their online webinars. They’re free for members and keep them up to date with regulatory requirements. It’s like a safety net,” she says. 

It’s not just information, she also values the feeling of connection she gets from these organisations. “It can often feel quite isolating. So they run sessions for landlords to talk to other landlords.” 

Find the right support for your property finances

Keeping up with your financial records and your tax deadlines isn’t easy - but accounting software like FreeAgent can take the pressure off. 

Try FreeAgent for Landlords free for 30 days and discover how much more efficiently you could run your property finances.