To send a "good luck in your new home" card to my new tenants?

[Spidey66]

OK I know that landlords get slagged off all the time here, but I'm a decent person, who hopefully will be seen as a decent landlord!

I inherited some money 10 years ago, and used it to buy a small flat in a popular UK holiday destination. For several years I used it as a holiday let and we have had several very happy holidays there ourselves.

For a number of reasons, one of which being there is a shortage of decent homes to rent for locals (which always played on my very strong social conscience) it has now been put up for a residential letting. An estate agency will be strongly involved in the every day running as we are some distance away.

A few people went for viewings and we have made a decision on the tenants, a couple in late 20s/early 30s working locally in hospitality.

I genuinely want them to be happy there and while I won't have much day to day contact, I want them to know I want to be a responsible and approachable landlord.

I was thinking of sending them a Welcome to Your New Home card to introduce myself. Is that a good idea or would they think it's a bit in-your-face?

As a tenant - yes this is a good idea.

Also leave your direct contact details, in case the agents are completely useless and the tenants can't get issues fixed (I've seen this a few times)

If you were going to be dealing with them directly then it would make sense BUT as it stands you're paying an estate agent to basically be the first port of call and act as a go-between, therefore I think it's too much to send a card.
in the back of my mind, if I was a tenant ,I'd worry you're going to be overbearing and on my back.

I have to totally disagree with that. A few months ago my friends ceiling started leaking, they had no idea where the water mains were to switch it off. They had to call their land lord, ok not ideal at 1am to get a call from a tenant but better than water flooding through the ceiling. I'm not sure how many letting agents would answer at that hour.

Also OP yes I think it's a lovely idea. We didn't get a card but the last place we rented was through an agency. LL gave us his number, I spoke to him about some repairs that we agreed prior to moving in. Some of them we did ourselves he just bought the materials, such as reseeding the lawn. So it worked out. After that we never spoke to him, just paid our rent on time to the agent. When we left he sent a text saying good luck in our new house and thanks for leaving the house so clean that he didn't need to hire a cleaner before putting the house up for sale. Randomly I meet the girl who bought the house in the pub a few years after!!

But if there is an EA, surely its apparent they'll be the first point of call?

As it is,without being too outing, it's a 7 hour drive between us and them. Too far to be overbearing, and to do any repairs. The EA is part of a chain and has an out of hours contact for emergency repairs.

This is such a lovely idea and I would have really appreciated receiving something like this when we started our rental.

I manage my rental myself and only use an agent to find prospective tenants. I do the viewings and then select the tenants I feel are good for the property and have a rapport with.

A card, wine or chocs etc is something I've done and it's been appreciated. But I also drop a card/voucher off at Christmas and when they had a baby. We're not besties obviously but have a great relationship with them and they know they can call anytime about anything, knowing it'll get sorted. Otherwise I leave them well alone, other than for maintenance.

As you've got an agent managing then perhaps leave them your number as a backup/feedback.

I’m a LL.
starting off right I’d important. If you want to be totally hands off and leave everything to the agent, that’s fine. My in-laws are LLs and had a couple of bad experiences and now never speak to any tenants and leave everything to the agent. Some tenants like that as well.

Personally, I make brief initial contact. I’m involved in the choosing of tenants and I always leave a welcome card and chocs. There’s also a file of useful property and local area info. Also, at Christmas, I always send an M and S gift voucher at the start of Dec for £50 with a Christmas card. I figure renting is expensive and good tenants are valuable and if helps towards their Christmas lunch, it’s money we’ll spent. When tenants move on, if they’ve been good tenants and the place has been left in a decent (pristine not needed) condition I get another £50 voucher and ask agent to send it to their forwarding address if I don’t know what it is.

I give my tenants an email address and a mobile number. If there’s a water leak, I actually do want to know. In my file that I leave, it details what they should contact me about and what to tell the agent. Most is to the agent.

My contact with them is very minimal. I usually get in touch directly about 4 months before renewal, before the agent does. if they are good tenants, I tell them I’ve appreciated them as tenants and usually offer them 2 different lengths of tenancy and never put the price up. They let me know what they’d like or if they plan to go. Then I tell the agent ahead of their standard letters to the tenant, so if a tenant will take the longer tenancy they know to prepare that.

I have more contact with the agent than the tenant. The agent organises gas checks, electric checks and any minor works that are needed. I also make sure the agent is carrying out the 6 monthly checks on the property, and a 3 month check for a new tenant.

My tenants know they can contact me if they need to but also where boundaries lie. I would have no problem telling someone who started contacting me too much to refer to the agent instead, or pointing out to them where things are their responsibility. Good tenants though are to be treated extremely well and to feel they matter and their concerns matter…because actually, in a good property few concerns arise and when they do, tenants deserve what they have paid for, which is a prompt and proper response to the issue.

Lovely idea, I’ve always done a plant and a card welcoming them to my much loved family home and hoping they will be happy there along with some local info.

I think it's nice to leave a card- we also did a house and local area manual as well- bin day and instructions for appliances, plus they were moving to a new area with a baby so we left them details for baby groups, health visitor dropins etc, and our favourite takeaways.

They were a total pain for a while though- so I'm glad they didn't have our direct contact details. Getting stuff fixed immediately and giving the agent permission to get on with most things without reference to you is the best thing you can do.

Personally I'd think it was really fucking weird.

As a tennant I wanted no contact with the landlord at all. It was a business transaction and everything should go through the letting agent.