Difficulty Letting Room?

um7y1h83ge06nx

Hi All,

I was wondering are people have much increased difficulty letting rooms.

The reason I ask is that I have a single room in Limerick advertised on Daft for the last two weeks and haven't even got a single call.

Now I know that single rooms are harder to let and all that, particularly in Limerick where rents are fairly low and people might go for a double room instead.

I just wonder how much of the difficulty in letting this room can be attributed to the fact that it is a single room, how much because it's probably a bad time of year for people moving to new accomodation and the big one, how much can be attributed to increasing supply and falling demand.

And before certain people start replying, I don't "need" the money to pay the mortgage, but extra money is always nice.

All views welcome.

The_Conductor

Just a suggestion- but how about putting a notice up in your local shopping centre too?

Room letting has slowed right down- yes.

JuliusCaesar

I think that as the amount of rooms to be let increases, the rents will come down and potential lodgers will have a wider choice and so can be picky. You can't do anything about your location or the size of the room, but can you do anything to make it more attractive than similar lets in the locality? Eg throw in broadband etc.

Did you put photos on your ad?

Ste.phen

+1 on photos, I wouldn't even look at an ad for a place without photos.
There's just so many places available on daft to rent, that it's not worth wasting time looking at ads that people don't put photos up for.
Sure, it could be nice, but there's plenty of places i can *see* are nice / not nice

Daft.ie, 2008-11-24 wrote:

Full houses/flats: Available now in Limerick City: 170 Houses To Let, 201 Apartments To Let, 1 Flats To Let and 0 Studios To Let
House/Flat shares: Available now in Limerick City: 57 Single Rooms, 140 Double Rooms, 1 Twin Rooms and 0 Shared Rooms

John Mason

i had my room on daft.ie for about 4 months this year. gave up paying them after that and just struggled on by myself. i had two callers about it. one didnt speak any english so he got his friend to email me, he was still in some part of european and the other hung up on me when i said the room didnt have en-suite:rolleyes:

good luck with your serach, i have someone moving in february, one whole year after i started looking

sweetie

would defo recommend a double bed if it would fit. From the piccies it probably would be wide enough. Also dress the room for the piccies would be nice too. Pictures of the living room, kitchen and garden would help too.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Thanks for the replies.

I'll start putting up posters to-morrow evening and will do a better job of the pictures, I just got those up quickly this evening.

As an update, one of the other guys in the house, an archaeologist, was told to-day that their site is going to be shut down on Friday. They're excavating for a housing development, the houses aren't selling and all building is now being halted. That's pretty tough going.

So that will mean he's moving out in a week, so I'll have a double room as well to rent. It's still manageable for me financially as I stress tested my ability to re-pay with no rent coming in and interest rates being a good bit higher than what they are now. Luckily, I'm on a Tracker.

I'll keep you up to date, I reckon people would be interested to see how I get on, a case study of the rental market I guess!

Thanks again.

Cantab.

Ever considered your asking price is too high?

Ste.phen

Maybe it is, but 280 for a double room isn't too bad anywhere, really

The_Conductor

Supply has shot up though- if you want to be noticed you have to make extra effort and make your room more interesting to potential candidates.

Cantab.

You'll just have to learn the law of supply and demand the hard way so.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Cantab. wrote: »

You'll just have to learn the law of supply and demand the hard way so.

Yeah. I'm being pretty sensible, pricing according to the going rate. If you look through daft and search for rooms in Limerick in the Raheen/Dooradoyle area, you'll that most of them are a similiar price to mine, with some lying at both price extremes.

It's like any product/service really I guess, I could go with an extremely low or high price or price match to the market.

But I definitely agree that it's a case of supply increasing and demand descreasing so I will be keeping an eye on prices.

um7y1h83ge06nx

smccarrick wrote: »

Supply has shot up though- if you want to be noticed you have to make extra effort and make your room more interesting to potential candidates.

Definitely. The pics are just stop gaps until I can do something better this evening. Must put up some pics of the double room as well.

Thanks for all the replies.

Dob74

Things are slow. Have been trying to rent a 2 bed house for month.

Climate Expert

You seem to have your stuff together unlike most rent-a-roomers. All you can do is just advertise, drop the price a bit (although not there is a point of diminishing returns with that one) and just wait for the market to meet you at some point.

groom

Jane Sticky Wrecker wrote: »

I just wonder how much of the difficulty in letting this room can be attributed to the fact that it is a single room, how much because it's probably a bad time of year for people moving to new accomodation and the big one, how much can be attributed to increasing supply and falling demand.

All difficulty can be attributed to the price you're seeking and equally supply and demand or maybe just supply

Rorate Caeli

Cantab, would you not read a book or something?

tHE vAGGABOND

I had a room up in central dublin, and while I had a couple of folks look at it, there was no interest..

I took the add down off daft for a few days. I then put a new add back up and matched the cheapest price for a similar room in my area. [knocking 20 quid a week off my initial rent].

I was then snowed under with calls and have rented it out.

Lesson learned, a) you have to be competitive and b) people dont read thru pages and pages of daft add's - take your add down and give it a polish, put better photos up maybe?

um7y1h83ge06nx

Thanks for all the helpful replies.

I thought I would give you guys an update.

There are no takers as of yet for the rooms, but I have uploaded much better pics of the rooms and removed the old ones. The guy in the double room just moved out this morning so I wasn't really able to do much with the double room until now.

Amazing what a few cushions, candles, lamp can do for a room.

mikemac

Had a quick look at your ad and the photos look excellent, it can only help

The_Conductor

Yes- nice one Super Sonic- it looks really well.

I'd suggest possibly adding some photos of the other common areas of the house- the sitting room/kitchen (not bathroom!)

Also- 3 of the pics of the double room look remarkably similar- its not really necessary to get down to that level of detail?

Nice though- its a big improvement, and looks really well......

DJDC

Thanks for all the helpful replies.

I thought I would give you guys an update.

There are no takers as of yet for the rooms, but I have uploaded much better pics of the rooms and removed the old ones. The guy in the double room just moved out this morning so I wasn't really able to do much with the double room until now.

Amazing what a few cushions, candles, lamp can do for a room.

You can stick up as many beautiful photos as you want mate but if you want to get someone in,you are going to have to drop the price. I never understand the stupidity of the average property investor. Take €100 off your rent price and get someone in fast, earning instant cash flow. Or else hold out for the higher price, hence earning NOTHING. In other markets, this how it works. However due to the lack of financial sense of the average joe in the property market, price drops are slow and painful due to the aforementioned tendancies.

sweetie

sweetie wrote: »

would defo recommend a double bed if it would fit. From the piccies it probably would be wide enough. Also dress the room for the piccies would be nice too. Pictures of the living room, kitchen and garden would help too.

as I said before, you need pictures of the living areas and garden also. People will be sharing a house with you and if they see a nice room with lcd tv, comfy couches, dvd collection, large kitchen, pc/broadband etc. it might make the difference. When I was renting out my house it was those areass that sold the property to people. Maybe change the prices to 200 and 250 or put rent negotiable in the text and consider dropping it if someone asks also. best of luck.

Raskolnikov

DJDC wrote: »

I never understand the stupidity of the average property investor.

I can never understand the stupidity of people who are unable to comprehend simple and understandable English. This chap is NOT a property investor, he is simply trying to help pay for the mortgage on his owner-occupied home.

Raiser

Original Post

Jane Sticky Wrecker wrote: »

Hi All,

I was wondering are people have much increased difficulty letting rooms.

The reason I ask is that I have a single room in Limerick advertised on Daft for the last two weeks and haven't even got a single call.

Now I know that single rooms are harder to let and all that, particularly in Limerick where rents are fairly low and people might go for a double room instead.

I just wonder how much of the difficulty in letting this room can be attributed to the fact that it is a single room, how much because it's probably a bad time of year for people moving to new accomodation and the big one, how much can be attributed to increasing supply and falling demand.

And before certain people start replying, I don't "need" the money to pay the mortgage, but extra money is always nice.

All views welcome.

Prior Post [Smugness level is dependant on your interpretation]

Jane Sticky Wrecker wrote: »

Must say I agree with you, you are providing a service.

In my case I could afford to pay the mortgage myself, but would like some company and extra cash so I rent out 2 doubles and a single in my house.

The upshot is that this month for instance, taking into account rate changes to my tracker, mortgage interest relief and the rent I recieve, I have only paid less than €140 out of my own pocket. The way I look at it, it works out handy for me, pays the mortgage and keeping it in its simplest terms, I'm paying €140 a month for a double en-suite. And it's all legal and above board.

I'm not bragging above, I'm just stating the sense in taking in some decent lodgers.

The Present Deal [Correct at time of going to press]

Daft.ie wrote:

House Share Details Back to Search Results New Search
Abbeycourt, Fr. Russell Rd, Dooradoyle,
Limerick City Suburbs
2 Bedrooms Available for 1 Year+

* Single Room - €220 monthly
* Double Room - €280 monthly

2 people currently living in this house
Looking for either males or females
(House is owner occupied)

This mans verdict

My advice would be to play fairer Captain-€140-PM

gurramok

^^^^
Investigator Columbo is on boards

OP, price is what counts as its a decent room at the end of the day.

The_Conductor

gurramok wrote: »

^^^^
Investigator Columbo is on boards

OP, price is what counts as its a decent room at the end of the day.

Location and comfort level along with the availability of facilities (such as broadband) and other amenities would factor even more highly for some people......