Buy to let deal of the day - 5% gross yield in Whitton

Love this one! It could only be made better if it needed a speedy refurb so you could add value as well. However, if 'get in - rent it - get out' is your bag then fill your boots with this one - it's fab!

      

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/36544114#PYuFBlGW7d6SHKsZ.97

Cracking location just a 5 minute walk from Whitton station on a lovely leafy road. Its on at £325k which is definitely the top end of where I'd value it so certainly don't pay any more than this. Ideally you want to get it for £315-320k. It will rent every day of the week for at least £1350pcm giving you a gross yield of 5% even if you pay the asking price, so potential to squeeze a bit more from it.

Only downside is that its a flat so you will have service charges to pay. Its not a new block though so should be more reasonably in the region of £600-800 per year (rather than the £2k per year you sometimes have to pay in the newer developments - ridiculous)!

Please do get in touch if you have properties you currently rent or are looking to expand your portfolio. First and foremost I'm a local independent letting agent and I also source properties for buy to let investors. If you want a chat though - that I can definitely offer you for free! :o)


Rebecca Smith
http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/

Buy to let deal of the day - scruffy gem in Isleworth!

I've blogged about this one before but its worth another visit to show you the kind of thing to look out for in an investment property. Its not a beauty parade - you're going for return on your investment!

Now for this one you need to use your imagination. It's 'scruffy', to say the least, so probably tenanted or has an owner who doesn't take much pride in their home!

      

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/36592034

See what I mean?! Cant believe they couldn't even be bothered to make the beds for the photos!! 

What it does have going for it though is the price and the location. It's less than a 5 minute walk to Isleworth station and is on the market for £254,950. That's a good price for a 2 bed in this area. As soon as its emptied of all the messy stuff it will be a pretty decent flat that probably just needs a lick of paint and new carpets. It will rent in the region of £1350pcm which, even if you pay full asking (which you probably won't have to) would give you a gross yield of 6.4%. Nice!

Please do get in touch for a chat about anything buy to let - would love to hear from you!

Rebecca Smith

http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/

The way it works in Teddington is this: You have to rent where you want to live, or buy where you don't want live....!

I had this really interesting chat with some of my tenants the other day on renewal of their tenancy agreement. They are a lovely couple in their early thirties and I know they have decent jobs in London. They have been tenants of ours for a while now, so I know them quite well. We got talking and I asked if they had ever thought of buying a property for themselves, to which they replied back with the title of this article. It made me think and so I did some more research into the subject which I want to share with you.

After the end of the Second World War, just over a quarter of the UK population owned their own home, the rest rented from private landlords or the local Council. However, if someone told you in the 1970’s and 1980’s that they rented, they were considered a second class citizen! Everyone wanted to own their own home .. it was the done thing. We still think that home ownership will inevitably happen, but it won't. 

It all changed in the 1970’s when two things happened. Firstly, the number of people who owned their own home broke through the 50% barrier in 1971 and by 1981 it was at 57%. Tied in with that, the average house prices in Teddington were doubling at one point every four years in the 1970’s so property and profit started to feed off each other. To put that growth in context, if we were to look at the last 85 years in Teddington, in 1930, the average Teddington property was worth £835. The average property value in Teddington currently stands at £708,101. It's not hard to do the maths!

We could blame Maggie Thatcher for making home ownership the ultimate goal, but what we now need to consider is that the country is turning on its head and we need to, as a country, love renting again. Some blame the banks, but obtaining a 95% mortgage is hard work, but nowhere near impossible. A typical Teddington first time buyer would only need to save £17,000 for a deposit and fees and they could buy a pretty decent one bed property. For example, you could buy a property on Stanley Road in Teddington, and it would be cheaper each month in mortgage payments than renting.

People might say on the surveys they want to buy, but when it comes down to it, if you have been living in a lovely big house on Fairfax Rd, but the bank will only lend you enough to buy a two bed flat on the Harrowdene Gardens estate, what would you do? Don’t get me wrong, Harrowdene Gardens has really pulled its socks up over the last ten years, but it isn't Fairfax Road, is it? Again, if you were a twenty something, what would you do? Have another read of the title of the post ... “The way it works is, you have to rent where you want to live, or buy where you don’t want to live,”

With tenant demand only going in one direction, that is probably why more and more people are getting into buy to let in Teddington. With the new rules on pensions and the ability to use them to buy residential rental properties from April onwards, this could be the time for you to buy a rental property. You must take advice on your pension from an Independent Financial Advisor (there are plenty in Teddington) and you must take advice from people who know what to buy (and not to buy) in Teddington to ensure you get the best from your investment.

Please do give me a call or drop me an email if this is ringing true with you - I'd be happy to offer you my opinion - a chat doesn't cost you a penny! :o)


Now I have to apologise for today's picture, its a little close to the bone, but definitely made me laugh!



Rebecca Smith

http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/

020 8398 9333
rebecca@rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk

Buy to let deal of the day - lovely Teddington 2 bed

This is a classic case of not so pretty on the outside but lovely on the inside. Now don't forget, for the rental market, what it looks like on the outside is FAR less important than for the sales market so don't let it put you off. The outside isn't actually that bad with this one and the inside MORE than makes up for it...!

    

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/36268084

Lovely isn't it! So how do the numbers stack up?? Well if you buy it for the offers over price (which I think is a very good price so you might be lucky) of £335k and achieve the market rental figure of £1400pcm then the gross yield works out to be bang on 5%. Great for Teddington which is notoriously 'not great' for yield but much better when it comes to capital appreciation.

Do drop me an email or give me a call if you have any questions about buy to let - happy to help! My contact details are on my website below...

Rebecca Smith
http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/

Support Teddington's playing fields..

Not my usual property topic today folks but one that many people have brought to my attention recently. Worth mentioning and therefore supporting in my book.

Imperial College, the owner of 13 acres of playing field bounded by Udney Park Road, Kingston Lane and Cromwell Road in Teddington, has recently put the site up for sale.
This is something that should be, and is, close to the heart of many Teddington residents and @Teddington_Town is helping to support the bid. Below is a quote from the Teddington Town website...

"After Imperial College ceased sporting activities at their sports fields on Udney Park Road, rumours have been rife about the future of the 13 acre site in the heart of Teddington. The process is now open for bidders to make themselves known but the desperate need for local sports facilities, green spaces and protection against over-development has led to the formation of a concerned group Space to Play. 

Space to Play is a community consortium of local sports clubs, schools, businesses and residents that are coming together to ensure that the Imperial College playing fields remain an open space and a dedicated sports facility that can be opened up to the whole community. Local sports clubs and some schools are in need of extra playing fields in order to meet the demand from local families – many have long waiting lists to join clubs 

The group needs support of local residents to ensure that this ‘presumption’ becomes a ‘conviction’. Interested parties must put forward proposals in the next few weeks and a community bid would almost certainly be the best way of safeguarding as much of the land as possible. Visit their website for more info and to add your signature to their petition if you are also concerned about the future of the site."

Have a great weekend! (Back to property stuff on Monday I promise)! :o)

Rebecca Smith
http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/

Buy to let deal of the day - cash buyers only in Teddington...

So this maybe isn't a property to cut your teeth on in the investing world but isn't something you should be frightened of either. If you can raise the finance without using a mortgage then you should definitely consider it.

It's a 2 bed flat in Harrowdene Gardens (one of my favourite Teddington buy to let locations). Now the reason it's for cash buyers only is because it only has a 60 year lease on it and lenders won't consider anything under 75 years as a general rule. Given the fact that it needs work doing to it as well I think they're being a bit over ambitious with the price. I wouldn't offer more than £325k for it. It will then cost you anything up to £20k to extend the lease and then you'll need to spend about £5-8k renovating it. (Don't forget, when you renovate for buy to let its not the same as renovating your own house - only do what you need to do to a decent standard but don't spend on anything that's not necessary as it will just eat into your profits).

    

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/36446807

Lets do the figures...If you pay £325k for it, spend £8k on it (worst case) and then renew the lease for £20k, you've spent a total of £353k before fees. It will then be worth in the region of £400-425k by my reckoning which would give you an average profit of around £60k! The rental figure for this would be in the region of £1250pcm giving you a yield of 4.3% - decent for Teddington.

Don't forget, if you don't want to leave that much money in a property you can take a mortgage out on it after you've renewed the lease and owned it for at least 6 months. You can then get some, or maybe even all, of your cash out and either go on a lovely holiday or buy another one! :o)

As always, please do get in touch if you have any burning property questions - happy to help!

Rebecca Smith
http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/

Your pension could now buy you a buy to let property in Teddington...

In a recent article, I mentioned that pension rules are changing this April. It certainly created a few emails, with people asking questions about it. Therefore, this week, I want to look a little deeper into the subject of your pension and the Teddington property market. George Osborne, in last years’ Budget, announced pension reforms that come into effect this April, which will give people with pensions unprecedented access to their pension pot and the freedom to look for alternatives. In a nutshell, after the 6th of April, anyone aged over 55 will be allowed to withdraw all or part of their pension pot and spend it as they wish. Until now, you were allowed to take out a quarter of it and were forced to buy an annuity policy with the rest. However, my readers always know that I like to tell it ‘as it is’. There are always two sides to a story, good and bad. Let me tell you the bad news first. There are some hefty tax implications by taking money from your pension pot. As before, as per the old rules, the first 25% can still be withdrawn from the pension pot tax free but, here is the sting in the tail, if you take more than a quarter of your pot (25%), anything above that initial 25% level will be taxed as income. So if you took the whole lot out, the first 25% will be tax free but the remaining 75% will be taxed at your income tax rate of 20%, 40% (or even 45% if you earn over £150,000 a year) . .. and now the good news! Under the old scheme, if you bought an annuity, when you died your annuity normally died as well. You would have no asset to pass on to your family. Also, the returns from pensions are awful at the moment. The best rates according to Hargreaves and Lansdown (big wigs in the City) state if you were 55 years old, the best rate you would get on your annuity pension would be 4.4% fixed for life (so it would never go up) or 2.2% but the payment would go up with inflation. The sort of rates (also known as yields in the property investing game) being achieved in Teddington are in the order of 3% to 5%. The other aspect of property investment is how the fact property values have risen consistently over the last 50 years. According to the Office of National Statistics, the life expectancy of a 65 year old male in Teddington is 9 years and 3 months (its only 6 years 8 months in Twickenham - surprising huh?!). If we roll the clock back 9 years 3 months to January 2006, property values in Teddington have risen by 112% to today .. you wouldn't have had that with your pension! But this is the biggest win, even by taking a hit in income tax now, by buying a property, you buy an asset that you can pass on to your family when you die.... (or the dogs home if they aren't nice to you!). So where next? Well, it totally depends which strategy you are going to look at. One strategy is to look to achieve relatively small rental returns (i.e low yields) in an up market area which has decent capital growth or, alternatively, another strategy is to buy properties in not so good areas known to produce a high returns (i.e high yields) but low capital growth (i.e how much the value of the property goes up). Now, I am not a financial adviser, so cannot offer financial advice on what the best thing for you with your pension is. However, I can share my knowledge and experience of the Teddington property market, what to buy, what not to buy and where to buy etc etc. If this strikes a chord and you'd like to know more then please do get it touch. I'd be happy to offer my advice. HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A HAPPY EASTER! Rebecca Smith http://www.rebeccasmithpropertyservices.co.uk/ PS - my sister sent me this picture to share on my blog - made me laugh!