Dean decorates rental homes in Southfields, about 4 miles north-east of Northampton town centre, for private landlords and letting agents. Lets here are mostly compact modern terraces and semis, so the work is usually a between-tenancy repaint in hard-wearing neutral emulsion with woodwork touched up or refinished.
What the rental market looks like here
Southfields is mainly an owner-occupied estate. Crystal Roof figures for Gallery Close put homes owned outright and owned with a mortgage at about 40% each, with private renting at roughly 15 to 17% and council renting close to zero. Shared ownership is 2.7%, higher than the 0.9% regional figure. In practice that means the lets here are mostly single privately rented houses rather than HMOs, student lets or blocks of flats. For a landlord here, a changeover usually means getting one compact house ready for photos and viewings with as few void days as possible.
Planning a changeover in a compact house
The size of the homes shapes the job. The smallest lets are likely to be the Barley Hill Road terraces (about 44-45 sq m) and terraced bungalows (about 34 sq m), with semis from about 49 sq m in the later phases. With so little floor area, a whole-house repaint is quite contained, and the main time factor is drying between coats. Kitchens and bathrooms in these small homes are often next to each other or stacked one above the other, and they get washed down with sugar soap before anything else so grease and soap residue do not stop the new emulsion from bonding. Where the property is let unfurnished it can often be done in one continuous run. Part-furnished lets need furniture moved within the house, as there is rarely space to store it.
| Property type | What usually needs attention |
|---|---|
| Timber-frame terrace (Micklewell Lane, Brackenfield Square) | Recurring cracks at plasterboard joints and above skirtings; flexible filler rather than another layer of hard filler |
| Small terrace or bungalow (Barley Hill Road) | Whole-house neutral repaint, kitchen and bathroom walls washed down first |
| Cavity-wall semi (Gallery Close, Ludlow Close) | Hall and stair scuffs, picture-hook holes, woodwork touch-up |
We use one neutral colour throughout where you are happy with that, and note the product and shade on the job sheet, so marks can be touched in mid-tenancy without repainting a whole wall. Our main landlord and letting agent decorating page covers the general approach to rental work.
Shared ownership and housing-association homes
Shared ownership near Gallery Close is three times the regional rate, and council renting is close to zero, so a provider-owned or part-owned home is more likely here than council stock. Interior decorating in a shared-ownership home is normally down to the leaseholder, but anything that changes the outside, such as a new front door colour, should be checked against the lease first. Where a housing provider sets a specification, we work to it.
Keys, access and the footpath squares
Several Southfields streets are pedestrian squares, including Barnhill Square, Saddlers Square, Tower Field Square and Merrydale Square, where the front door faces a footpath and the nearest parking is on a close nearby. For an empty property, we collect keys from you or the agent, carry materials in on the first morning and keep them inside until the end. Bins, bikes and garden furniture left by an outgoing tenant on a shared footpath can block the route in, so it helps if the agent’s checkout clears those before we arrive. We send photos at the finish so you or the agent can check the work without travelling out to the north-east edge of town. To see what else we cover locally, visit the Southfields area page, or use the cost guide to see what affects a quote.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
