Rents remain stable in Heather Drive

A landlord I know has owned a few properties on Heather Drive for the last five years. She came in to our office to discuss the rise and fall of property prices on the street and how this has affected her yield over the years.

In 2010, when she purchased her first property on Heather Drive, the average value of a flat on the street was £114,000 which had a sharp fall to £106,000 by 2011. The prices stabilised in value during 2012, with average values being £111,300 in 2013 and an impressive rise to £122,000 in 2014.

When she told me of the rents she had achieved on the street, they seem fairly stable over the five years. In 2010-2011 the average rent was £625 per month and is now averaging £645 per month. Therefore, a landlord could expect a respectable annual yield of around 6.3% on Heather Drive at the moment.

In our experience the flats in Woodpeckers fetch slightly more in rent than Bishops Court but both are equally popular with tenants due to their close proximity to both the train station and town centre and always rent well.

Comment below if you have any further questions about potential investments of any other property questions. 

Latest Land Registry shows a continuing rise in prices

The January report from the Land Registry has just been issued showing a continuing rise in prices for Hampshire and Wiltshire although there is a variance in the average house price for the two areas.

Both Hampshire and Wiltshire have shown a monthly increase in house prices of 0.3% for January whereas the annual price increases differ with Hampshire showing an increase of 8.8% while Wiltshire shows a lower increase of 6.3%.  However, the average house price for Wiltshire currently stands at £198,997 whereas in Hampshire this increases to £233,651.

The report also shows that repossessions are on the decline.  The latest figures available cover August to November 2014 and show an average of 764 repossessions per month which compares with 1242 per month for the same period the previous year.

Have you got your retirement plan?

Under George Osbourne's pension reforms pensioners will shortly be able to use their pension pots to invest in the buy-to-let market rather than investing in more traditional investment funds. 

I suspect some will have a good holiday, or buy a Ferrari but research carried out by Direct Line for Business report that 1 in 3 people aged between 45 to 64 with a pension are considering using their pot of money to invest in this new opportunity available to them, as they believe it offers more security in the long run with a good monthly income.  17% are also attracted by the capital appreciation property achieves over time.  9% of those surveyed found buy-to-let appealing as something that can be left to their children.

Obviously this potentially will provide a massive cash injection to the property market and it will be interesting to see what effect this has on both stock levels and values.  Watch this space!

Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Will your rental comply?

The Communities Minister Penny Mordaunt announced recently at the Local Government Association annual fire conference that, following years of campaigning by various bodies, it would become compulsory for Landlords to install smoke and carbon monoxide alarms at all rental properties.

It will be the Landlords or Agents responsibility to ensure that these alarms are working on moving in but will be the tenants’ responsibility to test them throughout the tenancy and report any failures.

The British Property Federation, who have been campaigning for this law to be brought in, believe that this will force those few remaining Landlords who do not have these fitted to now get this work done.  They believe that this will save 36 lives a year.

There is further clarification awaited regarding this law but it is believed that Landlords have until October 2015 to ensure their properties comply.

For more information head over to the government website