Using Google Alerts to help find Buy to Let properties
Having made the decison to get a third Buy to Let property, we were left with the question of where to buy.
Our Buy to Let Property number 1 had always rented well, so we decided to use Google Alerts to notify us whenever the particular road our Buy to Let Property number 1 was located on was added to the Google database (i.e. everytime Google spidered a new mention of this particular street to it’s search engine).
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your pre determined queries.
This gave us several potential peices of information:
1) We received early notification if estate agents listed new properties for sale in that street.
2) We received notification if other properties were advertised for Let and what rental income they were asking for the property. This is very useful information and allows us to determine if the rental price on our Buy to Let property was, below, above or inline with the current market value.
3) It also let us know if the road on which our Buy to Let property number 1 had been mentioned in the news. Since we didn’t actively visit this property, this alert would give us early warning of any potentail issues.
We set up Google alets at the following link: