What to Look For in a Buy to Let Property
The things that decide whether a house makes money are mostly boring, mostly visible, and mostly ignored at viewings. Here's the list I use.
Six things decide whether a buy to let works: the roof, damp, the wiring, the heating, the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating, and the street. Everything else is decoration or negotiation. If those six are sound you’ve got a house that rents. If two of them are wrong you’ve got a project, and projects need to be priced as projects.
I’m Connor, and Bullseye Properties Ltd is a buyer’s agent working only for the buyer across South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire. I’ve sourced 16 properties at 10 to 20% below market value, and the ones I’ve told people to walk away from usually failed on this list rather than on price.
What matters most when viewing a buy to let?
Condition of the structure, then the services, then the location. In that order. A tired kitchen is a weekend and a few thousand pounds. A roof is twenty. Buyers routinely reject a house over worn carpets and accept one with a bowed ridge line, because carpets are visible from the doorway and roofs need looking up at.
Age isn’t the problem people think it is. Most of what I buy is between 1900 and 1970. What matters is whether it’s been maintained, not when it was built.
The roof
Stand across the road and look at the ridge line. It should be straight. A dip or a sag means the timbers are going, and that’s a structural job rather than a repair.
Then look for slipped or missing tiles, moss growth heavy enough to hold water, and whether the chimney stack is pointed or crumbling. Check the gutters while you’re there. Overflowing gutters cause more damp than leaking roofs do, and they’re a fraction of the cost.
Rough costs, and these vary a lot by property and region:
| Job | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Replace a few slipped tiles | £150 to £400 |
| Repoint a chimney stack | £600 to £1,500 |
| Gutters and fascias, terraced house | £900 to £2,000 |
| Full re-roof, small terrace | £6,000 to £12,000 |
A re-roof on a £70,000 house is a sixth of the purchase price. That doesn’t make it a bad buy. It makes it a £58,000 house that’s being marketed at £70,000, and you should be buying it accordingly.
Damp, and the difference between the three types
There are three kinds and they don’t cost the same to fix.
Condensation is the common one and the cheapest. Black spotting in corners, around windows, behind wardrobes on external walls. It’s a ventilation and heating problem. Extractor fans, trickle vents and a tenant who heats the house usually solve it for a few hundred pounds.
Penetrating damp comes from outside: a failed gutter, cracked render, a leaking downpipe, ground levels built up above the damp proof course. Fix the cause and the wall dries. Usually low hundreds to low thousands.
Rising damp is the one people fear and the one that’s least common. A tide mark about a metre up the wall, salting on the plaster. If it’s genuine you’re looking at injection and replastering, and replastering is most of the cost.
Take a damp meter. They cost about £20. Also use your nose, because damp has a smell before it has a stain, and vendors paint over stains.
Wiring and the consumer unit
Look at the fuse box. If it’s a modern consumer unit with RCD protection, plastic or metal clad, you’re probably fine. If it’s a wooden backed board with rewireable fuses, budget for a rewire.
You’ll need an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) anyway. Landlords in England must have the electrical installation inspected and tested at least every five years, and give the report to tenants. That’s on GOV.UK’s electrical safety guidance for landlords, checked 25 August 2026.
An EICR is £150 to £300. A full rewire on a three bed terrace is £3,500 to £6,000, and it means lifting floors and chasing walls, so it’s a job to do before a tenant moves in rather than after.
Heating
You want a gas combi boiler, ideally under ten years old, with a service history. Check the boiler badge for a date. Check there are radiators in every room including the bathroom, and turn the heating on if you can.
No central heating at all is a £3,000 to £5,000 job on a small house. That’s survivable if it’s in the price. What’s less survivable is electric storage heating in a property you’re planning to let cheaply, because running costs push your EPC down and put tenants off.
Gas safety is a legal requirement: an annual check by a Gas Safe registered engineer, with a copy of the record to the tenant. GOV.UK, landlord safety responsibilities, checked 25 August 2026.
EPC, and what it actually costs to move a band
You can’t let a property in England or Wales with an EPC below band E, other than with a registered exemption. The cost cap for improvements is £3,500 including VAT. That’s the current Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard, on GOV.UK, checked 25 August 2026. The stated direction of travel is band C, but the detail and the dates have moved more than once, so I plan for C rather than assume a deadline.
What moves a band, roughly cheapest first: loft insulation topped to 270mm, a smart or programmable thermostat, low energy lighting, cavity wall insulation where the cavity is clear, a modern boiler, then windows. Solid wall insulation is the expensive one and it’s the reason some Victorian terraces are hard to get past D.
Ask for the current certificate and read the recommendations page. It lists the improvements and the indicative cost, and it tells you the potential rating. A property at D with a potential of B is a different proposition from a property at D with a potential of D.
The street, which matters more than the house
Two streets apart can be a £15,000 difference in value and a completely different tenant. This is the part you can’t do from a portal, and it’s most of the reason people ask me to go.
Walk it. Look at the other houses on the road: are they maintained, are the gardens kept, how many have satellite dishes stacked up from multiple lettings, is there a boarded window. Look at parking. Look at what’s at each end of the road. Go back at a different time of day if you can, because a street at 11am on a Tuesday and the same street at 6pm on a Friday are not always the same place.
I’ve said before that I wouldn’t let my dog live on some streets, and those streets tend not to go up in value either. High yield and low growth usually travel together, and the cashflow versus capital growth trade-off is worth understanding before you chase a headline number.
Doncaster is the clearest example of this in my patch. The gap between a good street and a bad one is wider there than anywhere else I buy, which is why the Doncaster guide is mostly about postcodes rather than the town.
Layout, and where the value add usually is
The most reliable value add I see is converting a two bedroom house into a three bedroom house. A third bedroom moves both the rent and the resale value, and on the right layout it’s a stud wall and a door rather than an extension.
Look for: a large through lounge that can take a partition, a box room that’s been knocked into a bedroom, a rear reception that could be a ground floor bedroom, or a loft with head height and a straight run for a staircase. Check whether the bathroom is upstairs. A downstairs bathroom limits your tenant pool more than people expect.
Be realistic about what a conversion does to the other rooms. A three bed with no living room is not a three bed anyone wants.
What makes me walk away
Not many things, but these do it:
- Structural movement with no engineer’s report. Cracks wider than about 5mm, stepped cracking through brickwork, doors that won’t close square.
- Japanese knotweed, or a neighbour with it. It’s a mortgage problem as much as a garden problem.
- Flood risk that shows up on the Environment Agency maps and isn’t reflected in the price. Across South Yorkshire this is non negotiable given the River Don.
- A short lease on a flat, or a service charge that’s rising faster than the rent.
- A street where the numbers only work if nothing goes wrong.
None of those are unfixable in every case. They’re all reasons to get a survey and a proper price before committing, rather than reasons to panic.
Questions I get asked about this
Should I get a full building survey or a homebuyer report? On anything pre 1950, or anything where the roof or damp raised a question, get the full building survey. It’s £600 to £1,200 against £400 to £700, and on the properties I buy it has repeatedly paid for itself in the renegotiation alone.
Is a new build a safer buy to let? Safer on maintenance, usually worse on numbers. You’re paying a premium for the newness and the yield reflects that. It can suit someone who genuinely wants no involvement, which is a legitimate goal, just a different one.
How much should I hold back for repairs? I model maintenance at around 10% of rent and a void allowance on top. On a £650 a month house that’s £780 a year for maintenance before you’ve allowed for a void. Anyone showing you a return without those two lines is showing you a gross figure with a different name.
Can I check most of this without visiting? Most of it, yes, if someone competent goes for you and films it properly. That’s the whole basis of buying from a distance, and it’s what I do for buyers who can’t get to viewings.
Does an old property always cost more to run? Not always. A well maintained 1930s semi with cavity walls, a modern boiler and a topped up loft can outperform a poorly built 1980s house. Condition beats age.
What I’d do next
Take this list to the next viewing you go on and score the house against it honestly, including the street. If you get through it and the numbers still work at a stressed mortgage rate, you’ve probably found something.
If you’d rather not spend your Saturdays doing that in a town you don’t know, that’s the job I do. Have a look at what I’ve bought, or tell me what you’re trying to buy and I’ll tell you whether I can help.