Go hi-tech to command higher rent

The days when tenants would be happy with a simple TV aerial socket in the corner of the living room to provide their entertainment are over. Now they want a gazillion channels, and they want a monster high-definition telly to watch them on.

And that's not all. Tenants do not want bulky loudspeakers with messy wires trailing all over the carpet. They want speakers concealed behind the walls or in the ceiling, controlled by remotes so they can listen to their favourite music in any room, including the loo.

Entertainment systems like this used to be the preserve of the rich, but plummeting prices have made them much more widely affordable. Cost-conscious buy-to-let landlords miss out if they fail to cater to the new demand, says the letting agent Alex Koch de Gooreynd of Knight Frank.

"An entertainment system is an integral part of a high-end level of finish, along with the fancy kitchen and bathroom, which puts up the yield from an average of 5 per cent to 6 per cent," Koch de Gooreynd says. "Tenants paying from £400 a week for a good one-bed flat want a plasma television, high definition, Sky and broadband as standard."

In the higher reaches of the rental market, tenants start demanding screens in every room, including a TV in the tiles at the end of the bath. "They also want surround-sound in the living room and a control system so he can watch sport in one room and she can watch EastEnders in another," Koch de Gooreynd says.

Wireless broadband is now assumed, he adds. This is not difficult to do - all you need is a wireless broadband access point costing less than £100, but it is necessary to position this as close to the centre of the property as possible, and the telephone socket needs to be near a power outlet.

One reason why tenants demand built-in flat screen TVs is the sheer size and weight - a 50in plasma will weigh upwards of 45kg - so tenants are less willing to haul them from flat to flat, says Jane Scotland, who runs her own hi-tech systems installation company, Beyond the Invisible.

"Apartments are getting smaller as well, so wall-mounted screens and speakers in the ceiling make a real difference to the amount of space," she says.

Portable DVD players, games consoles and the ubiquitous iPod have also made a big difference to tenants' needs, Scotland says. People don't want complete hi-fi systems, and multi-disc CD changers are things of the past. They just want to plug their own portable systems into the apartment's speakers and screens.

"We make it easy for tenants to come in and plug their DVD player and so on into the system and play their movies and music," she says.

It is essential to have sockets on the front of the TV screen so the tenant can be playing golf with Tiger Woods on the Nintendo Wii within minutes of arrival, and display pictures taken on their mobile phones when they get back from a night out with friends.

"We do an iPod dock so tenants can play their music instantly, without having to install a hi-fi system," Scotland says. "People are putting all their digital photos, music, documents and everything on portable hard drives that they can plug into the TV and audio system wherever they happen to be."

In the future, Scotland says, even the iPod and hard disc storage are likely to fade away, replaced by web services. Tenants used to move in laden down with TVs, laptops, games consoles, hi-fis and a thousand discs. Soon, they may arrive with nothing but their mobile phone.

Top demands

* Flat screen television, at least 42 inches, with high definition

* Sky TV, cable and wireless broadband

* Audio in every room

* iPod dock

* Surround sound in the living room

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