Wednesday 28 September 2016

Lovely Bletchley family 3 bedroom house, affordable £220k with 5.4% yield

Family homes with 3 bedrooms are well sought after if priced competitively, and this one is certain to be one of those options. With the purchase price equivalent to many modern 2 bedroom apartments this won't be on the sales market very long.....







Located in the established neighbourhood of West Bletchley, this modest 3 bedroom family home with garage and nice garden would make a very attractive and financially sound investment for any landlord or portfolio builder. With numerous schools, shops and facilities within a very short walking distance, including a 10 minute walk to the West Coast main line train station (London commuters please take note, train times are just 33 minutes to Euston from here), the location pretty much sells itself.







With an exceptionally fair asking price of £220k I would budget another £8k for a new kitchen, some modern flooring and a repaint where required, this will lift the property towards a more modern level of tenant expectation and help to achieve a rental of around £995, a 5.4% yield without significant work or outlay required. Similar houses with a downstairs WC & en-suite bathroom along with larger bedrooms would put this property purchase price at closer to £250k and rental value at £1100+ which would then be out of reach of younger growing families, so sometimes simple is best as this will have a wider appeal.








I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.







Tuesday 27 September 2016

Central Milton Keynes 4 bed townhouse, £205k with 6.1% yield single let / 8.8% yield as HMO

What a bargain! A terraced townhouse located just a few metres from the centre of town, currently looks like a HMO investment but could be returned to a family home or re-let as it is for maximum return, take a look...........







It appears to have had a garage conversion into a bedroom with en-suite, hence the fourth bedroom located downstairs. If this was to be used again as a HMO rental property, I would paint through and tidy up some of the unfinished areas to make the best of what is on offer for your new tenants. As a family home, I would return one of the first floor bedrooms to a lounge, again tidy up the paintwork and possibly upgrade the flooring throughout.







At an extremely reasonable £205k I would really not hang about with this one, as whichever way you choose to go with it you will certainly make good money from this. As a single unit let to a family group, I would expect this to achieve around £1050 PCM, hence the 6.1% yield. However, if you were to keep renting out individual rooms, the rental income could well be around £1500 PCM or 8.8% yield - clearly there is more risk to you in taking this option, as there are more tenants to deal with, more chance for them to miss their rental payments, there will be extra wear & tear imposed on the property and of course the local HMO licencing needs to be factored into your costs.









I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.






Wednesday 21 September 2016

Eaglestone 3 bed house with garage, close to Hospital and Central Milton Keynes, £210k with 5.7% yield

Not far from the centre of town and the Hospital along with a number of schools, have a look at this property and see if it could be your next buy-to-let investment....






How about this family sized home, reasonably affordable to you as an investor and to your next tenants, with a garden, garage, downstairs WC and decent location with walking distance of the Hospital and a number of primary & secondary schools.







Priced very competitively at £210k, it has to be said that it is a bit 'plain Jane' on the outside, but don't be put off by this, the internal space is quite useable and it would work for a family on a budget who cannot afford (or simply don't want to) pay closer to £1200 which is the price of a more modern 3 bed semi these days in many locations across the town. This would rent at around £995 PCM, showing a particularly decent return of 5.7% which you would have to agree is not to be ignored.









I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.







Monday 19 September 2016

Lovely 3 bed semi in West Bletchley, £220k with 5.4% yield

Even in todays busy market, you don't always have to spend a lot of money to pick up a very presentable and marketable rental property, and I think this is one of those such gems.......







Such a nicely presented house is on offer to my readers today, and although it could do with a splash of paint here and there to tone down the strong colours, the bones of the house, the kitchen & bathroom, are both fine and are ready to show to the market as they are. There is a large, maintenance free garden (which tenants love), a quiet public garden to the front so no noisy traffic passing by (plus somewhere for the children to play), and lots of family friendly amenities close by, including numerous schools.








At an incredible £220k, I would not hesitate to recommend this property to any investor looking to add a long term family home to their portfolio, when this same budget would struggle to buy a half decent 2 bedroom terraced house on a more modern estate - wouldn't you rather choose this option? The initial yield would be around 5.4%, but bare in mind how popular such a house would be for the long term, a period of 10-20 years should always be considered when investing in property, and you will always find tenants for this house simply because it is the right type of property in the right location.









I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.






Friday 16 September 2016

Close to the Hospital, a spacious 2 bed terraced house for £150k with 6.4% yield

An older house for you today, but one which offers a lot for the money, and looking at where it is located it will  almost certainly be snapped up by Hospital staff......






On a terrace in nearby Netherfield, this property is just 2 minutes walk from the Hospital, and being a 2 bedroom house with a garage and proper rear garden, it offers space for 2 professionals to share the space and the cost of living.  Don't be put off by this arrangement, these days more and more younger professionals choose to rent by sharing with a friend or colleague, they will both be responsible for the whole property rather than just renting an individual room each, so you will have no worries about the house having a 'revolving door' policy with untold numbers of tenants coming & going.






With a modern kitchen, two huge bedrooms and a light, spacious lounge, it has to be worth every penny of the £150k asking price today, and when rented privately you could realistically expect it to achieve around £800 PCM which is a very healthy 6.4% yield, absolutely stunning when you consider how much interest you would earn with a savings account in the bank.









I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.







Thursday 15 September 2016

Why do young people prefer to rent their home rather than buy?

I was recently talking with a landlord couple who are clients of mine, and we got chatting about how the youngsters of the UK seem to rent more than buy nowadays and that even included their son, a young adult himself now, and they couldn't understand why it was that they would choose to rent rather than buy.






Their son, like many 20 to 30 year olds in Milton Keynes, desperately wants to own his own property and the parents said he had read in the press recently,that when you compare house prices to earnings, the current 20 to 30 something’s generation have to spend more of their salary in mortgage payments than any previous generation. The demand for private rental sector accommodation in Milton Keynes is huge. There are in fact now over 13,400 private rental properties in Milton Keynes at the last count, impressive when you consider there are 6,923 council houses in the town. However, let us not forget 35,982 properties are owner occupied (24,167 with a mortgage).

Let us all be honest, private renting doesn’t have the stigma it had a few decades ago and it might surprise people that even though the British class ourselves as a nation of homeowners, roll the clock back 100 years and over 75% of people rented their own home (and it was all from private landlords as council housing only started to come in with the ‘homes for hero’s’ after the first World War).





Looking at the affordability issue, it is in fact cheaper to buy a property than rent when one looks at starter homes for first time buyers. 95% mortgages have been available to first time buyers for over 5 years now and whilst you could certainly find better properties in better condition in better areas, small starter apartments can be bought for as little as the early £90,000’s in the Walnut Tree area of Milton Keynes (meaning a modest deposit of just under £4,500 would be required).

However,  there has been a cultural attitude change towards renting property in Britain and this quiet revolution is likely to be permanent. In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, saving for the deposit was everything and buying a house was everything. Youngsters today have far much more disposal income than people had in the Callaghan and Thatcher years, but choose to spend it upgrading their mobile phones every 12 months, the newest tablet or PC, a newest 50” LCD TV and two sun drenched holidays a year, than go without and save for a deposit. Job mobility plays another part in not rooting young people to one location any more, as a job for life is no longer the norm as it once was.




Yes, there are horror stories of tenants living in rat infested properties with landlords who charge massive rents and don’t repair their properties. But that is very much the exception as most tenants want to rent homes of a quality they couldn’t ever to afford to buy. Twenty years ago, if you said you rented a property, you were considered the lowest of the low ... but now it’s the norm and a lifestyle choice.

So with mortgage affordability being well within the bounds of most first time buyers, the level of deposit required for a 95% being surprisingly modest (starting off at c.£4,500 in Milton Keynes as mentioned above) but as we change our attitudes the UK housing market is slowly but surely turning into a more European model, where people rent for long periods of their life, then eventually inherit their parents properties and subsequently become homeowners themselves, albeit later in life and these days often not before their mid 30's.






I cannot see the demand for decent, high quality rental properties ever dropping in the next 10 to 20 years, but only ever increasing as the population continues to soar. Just make sure you by the right property, at the price, in the right location. One source of information on such matters would be the Milton Keynes Property Blog and of course the advice I can give you if you speak to me.





If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.










Wednesday 14 September 2016

Another Bletchley 3 bed house in great condition, £237.5k with up to 5.3% yield

Just look at the quality and space on offer today at this realistically priced family home...







On offer for just £237.5k, look at the décor, lovely garden and fantastic room sizes on offer, and then tell me where else you can buy all this for the money. Fair enough, you might consider updating the kitchen units but I really can't see much else in need of attention. This is a nice quiet, family oriented location, with a number of local schools and great bus links for the town centre.







I would put this on the rental market for up to £1050 PCM once a modern kitchen was in place, and any local family wanting a quality property for a long term let would be very keen to take this, the yield would then be around 5.3% which is pretty good for such a home, in the long term this will always let well and be taken by families looking to stay for a number of years.








I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.






Tuesday 13 September 2016

Huge West Bletchley 4 bed house with room to extend, £250k with 6.2% yield minimum

EDIT: SINCE FIRST WRITING THIS BLOG, THE PRICE HAS BEEN REVISED TO £350K, SO THEY OBVIOUSLY MISPRICED THIS FIRST TIME AROUND


Look at the space available with this property, including a significant amount of parking space, this would really work for a large family......






We don't often see large properties like this in great condition being offered at such competitive prices. With excellent parking, a huge garden, garage & workshop space, there is little that needs doing to this house except maybe tone down some of the strong room colours to a more neutral palette. Homes of this size with large bedrooms really suit families with teenage children or elderly relatives living with them, and the area around here is very well established and popular with Bletchley folk, offering shops, schools and a thriving community atmosphere.







At the asking price of offers over £250k, you would spend a weekend painting and have this on the rental market for at least £1300 PCM (and likely a little more - allow them to keep pets and it certainly will achieve a great rental price). Even at the lower end of expectations, this would see a return of 6.2% which is just stunning given todays historic low levels of interest paid by other savings account and investments.






Don't forget that larger, well maintained properties in great areas also incur the best capital appreciation (growth in value over time), and this one could well be worth close to £300k after 2 years, that's money in the bank and a positive equity situation, along with strong rents this means that all the right ingredients are here in this one house to deliver exceptional financial returns in the future.






I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.







Monday 12 September 2016

Lovely 2 bed terraced house in Walnut Tree, £210k with 5.3% yield

Two bedroom terraced houses such as this are the bread & butter of the local residential market, and the property today is in great condition and offered at a very realistic price through us, so do come and see what your money could buy.....







The property is in great condition already, with nice flooring, subtle colours throughout and very low maintenance yet attractive gardens. It also benefits from gas central heating and off road parking, very important considerations from tenants these days. It could maybe do with a more modern kitchen fitting, and this could be done for around £4k, and if done it would lift the property towards the top of the table locally, thereby commanding a healthy rental valuation od around £925 PCM or 5.3% yield.






At a pretty reasonable £210k, this really won't be around for too long before a savvy investor snaps it up. Being in a great location offering top schools, excellent local shopping, a Doctors surgery and pharmacy, pubs, restaurants and takeaways, along with excellent road links to Kingston shopping centre and the M1 motorway, this area is always popular with tenants, add to that some world class employers such as The Open University and Red Bull Racing both literally on the doorstep, and you can see why young professionals as well as couples just starting out would love to live in a house like this.






Market demand for 2 bedroom houses always outstrips everything else, with over 74,000 searches for similar properties in Milton Keynes over the past month, this is one of the better choices so don't miss out if you are in the market for a safe buy-to-let property investment.






I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.






Friday 9 September 2016

Brexit bounceback - private rental sector saw significant rise in investment in August






New research just published has found that during August, activity in the buy-to-let sector saw a huge rise of 12.7%, suggesting that the changes to tax and stamp duty were only a short term problem for the sector and are now being factored into every asking price and offer submitted, just as with any other known costs an investor must consider.







Commenting on behalf of Connells Survey & Valuations, John Bagshaw states “Now the effects of the Government’s legislation have been digested by lenders and investors alike, buy-to-let activity has increased sharply. The market’s fears over the impact of Brexit are calming too and the Bank of England’s decision to cut the base rate last month for the first time in seven years may also have a psychological impact on property investors. Encouraging economic data, high levels of employment and fading fears of a recession have also injected life into the sector. While we can still see the impact of the last Government’s damaging set of changes to legislation in the year on year numbers, August’s surge in activity highlights the resilience of the buy-to-let sector.”


“Overall market activity remains steady and fears of a post-Brexit slump has failed to emerge. In the first full month after the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates, the buy-to-let market has seen a surge in activity. Powered by low interest rates, many landlords have taken the opportunity to remortgage.”





Many landlords have been taking advantage of a quieter time in the market over the summer to try to expand their residential portfolio, as the rental market has shown remarkable resilience to the Brexit worries and is still as strong as ever. In fact, the private rental sector is forecast to grow to over 5 million properties by 2018, a figure close to triple the number of privately rented properties across the whole of the UK back in 2000. As the market matures, with more people looking to delay purchasing their first home until their late 30s, along with other significant changes in employment mobility, family relationships and lifestyle, the private rented sector still looks like a strong performer when it comes to long term investment opportunities.






If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.









Thursday 8 September 2016

Building plot with planning permission for 3 bed detached, Oldbrook close to Central Milton Keynes, £130k





And now for something completely different.........







How about a plot of land with planning permission (just lapsed but being re-applied for), in a quiet cul-de-sac on Oldbrook, for a 3 bedroom detached house up to 1400 square feet in size, and all just 5 minutes walk from the centre of town and the mainline train station?










You clearly will have full construction costs to pay, including all local building regulations, groundworks, connection to mains utilities and landscaping costs, but this may just be of interest to a few of my readers who have contacts in the building trade and can get this turned around quickly.









I will regularly post what I consider to be great buy to let deals across Milton Keynes and surrounding areas on this blog 3 or 4 times a week, irrespective of which agent they are being marketed with. Maybe you should subscribe and be kept up to date?


If you are thinking of getting into the buy to let property rental market as a new investor and don't know where to start, or you would like some impartial advice and guidance to get the best return on your investment, call me now on 01908 373580 or pop along and speak to me in person at our new offices in Central Bletchley, Milton Keynes.