I’ve been a professional decorator for most of my working life, and self-employed for over 12 years. In that time, I’ve worked on many different types of job for many different types of clients.
Decorating for a landlord is a bit of a strange situation. They don’t live in the property themselves and they always have an eye on profit margin. I’ll explain why this is a problem;
The average tenant may rent a house for say 18 months before moving on. Ideally, every time a tenant moves out, a landlord would want a full redecoration, as well as changing any tired looking carpets, blinds, curtains and anything else. It would normally cost in the region of £3,500 for a decorator to come in and paint a full house.
The landlord might also have to fork out another £1000 on carpets and anything else that needs replacing. So, by those calculations, a landlord could conceivably spend £4,500 every 18 months on maintenance. That’s £250 per month lost in renovation costs!! By the time they’ve paid their monthly mortgage repayments, they could easily be losing money, rather than making it.
Those renovation costs need to come right down and often the decorating budget is cut from a few grand, to a few hundred quid.
A Landlord’s Standards
You may think a landlord’s budget is unrealistic, but if a decorator understands the situation, it’s fine. Stop looking at it as a full redecoration and start thinking of it as a “quick freshen up”. That normally means minimal prep and one coat on everything. Sometimes not even that!!
As a decorator, you should take your client through each room and have a detailed chat about the level of work you’re going to carry out. You may decide between you that some ceilings or the odd wall is fine and doesn’t need painting.
Or you might do a little bit of filling, spot prime, then apply one big coat on a wall. Woodwork often just gets one coat of satinwood.
Materials are cheap too!! We’re talking contract matt and either Crown Trade satinwood or Dulux Once!! One good tip is to try and use the same materials as the landlord used on the last freshen up. By doing this you have more chance of getting away with one coat.
Pricing Decorating Work for a Landlord
As mentioned above, you must have a detailed chat about the level decorating they expect you to carry out. Write a detailed spec, number of coats, which walls, which products etc. Go into as much detail as possible at the quoting stage when decorating for a landlord. Fire it all across via email and make sure it’s all agreed before you touch a paintbrush. That way, if your client isn’t 100% happy, as long as you’ve completed what you said you would, you’ll be covered.
You can offer them different levels of services for different budges too. The easiest way I find to do this is by saying, “I can spend 4 days in here for £x and get this done. Or for another £y amount, you can also have this, this and this.” This does two things: 1 – you’re putting the landlord in complete control. 2 – you’re managing the landlord’s expectations. If they decide to go for the cheaper option, they know the quality of finish will be diminished.
Is Decorating for a Landlord even worth it?
I’ve worked on some spectacular houses, but I still love decorating for landlords. It’s easy because you don’t need to be as anal about your work. Come in, wally a big thick coat on everything, then leave. It doesn’t take much in the way of skill, you just get on with it.
How to Find This Type of Work
If you fancy this sort of work, it’s easy to find it. Start by calling into local estate agents, introduce yourself, and then offer to leave them a card. If they manage properties for landlords, they often advise their clients to decorate before putting it on the market. You will also get the odd higher-end job from people who want to sell their house. Some estate agents take a commission, so just be weary. Price can be very tight to begin with, so giving a commission on this type of work can be difficult.
Final Thoughts
I know that decorating for landlords isn’t for every professional tradesman, but I enjoy it occasionally. It offers a different type of challenge than working for a homeowner. It takes a better understanding and communication with the client
Working for Letting Agents
Very long post warning and I’m sure there will be a lot of criticism from the ‘the only way is perfection’ brigade. Professional decorating for letting agents isn’t for everyone, but this is my experience, you can always balance this work with quality work and use agents for the easy money.
My name is Craig Williams and nearly all my decorating work is for lettings agents (insert gardener insult here!) and there is so much work available with them. If you send an email to the office manager of nearly any letting agent explaining what you can do for them, you’ll receive lots of work (once they’ve tested you with a couple of houses). They struggle to find decorators due to reputations of landlords’ payment terms and they sack off so many as they can’t stand bullsh*t, excuses and being let down all the time.
All a letting agent wants is a decorator that does what they promise. You can’t overrun by a week because a tenant is waiting to move in. You can’t shuffle them around and let them down, their primary focus is reliability. It doesn’t have to be a perfect job but it does need to be reasonable, but nobody is nit picking. So long as you’re clean and tidy, do a fair job and always deliver on time, they will love you and flood you with work. They’re not bad customers to have!
Remember that when using a letting agent, you’re not working for those landlords who are trying to screw you (we’ve all had those and I’m with you there, I won’t work for them either). It’s landlords who are hands off and want an agent doing the work for them, so long as the price is right and the standard is fair, they just want it done and the letting agent is the one paying you the money.
As I said, this isn’t for everyone. It’s all white or grey walls, white satin woodwork and put that Mirka back in the bag as it’s a quick fill and sand for your prep. You can still take pride and do a nice job of your decorating. It’s also nice knowing that you’re giving a tenant a fresh new house when most on the market are cr*p. If you work on £1200-£1500 to decorate a house (walls, ceiling and woodwork) which you can bash out in 3-4 days easy, then it’s really not bad money at all. My best one was a 2-bed apartment that I quoted £800 for walls and ceiling, it only needed one coat (white on white) and bashed it out in a day, you do the maths!
To summarise:
CONS
- Payment terms are on rent cycles so up to a month for payment. No exceptions, you work to the agent’s system, you’re just a contractor.
- It’s not the most satisfying work
- Everything needs doing yesterday
PROS
- Easy to clear £300 a day if you’ve got your sh*t together
- Most jobs are in empty houses, you collect the keys and do it in your own time (can do 2 at a time, no waiting for anything to dry)
- No customers walking around after you finding shadows or non-existent imperfections
- Prices are agreed by email, and you get what’s agreed
- Empty house means picking your own hours, radio on, oven and kettle at your disposal and often a washing machine for the rollers and dust sheets
- Regular work and easy money.
As I say, decorating for letting agents is not for everyone, but something worth considering.
I am both a decorator and a landlord so it is difficult for me to comment some of my flats are let through D H S some are to professional people on short term contracts in Glasgow but as the property is part of my long term strategy in Business I treat all property’s the same . When a tenant move s out I assess what is required and most time I will only have to touch up and apply one coat should more work be required l will use the deposit form the previous tenant to supplement the cost I am fortunate that all my property is mortgage free. But if you have a buy to let mortgage it goes with the territory you will have to spend money from time to time on decorators fact