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Katherine Bond

http://northamptonpropertyblog.com

Fridays buy to Let deal of the day Northampton

It’s been a while since I’ve recommended a property to buy with a tenant in situ (mainly because there haven't been many on the market!), but today I have come across this one for sale with Your Move... 

It's a fairly straight forward process when buying a property with a tenant in situ, the tenancy that they have running, will continue until it's expiry regardless of the owner and if you have a good agent managing it for you, they will be able to advise the best course of action at that point. 

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45508578.html 

As you will see from the Rightmove link above it’s a two bedroom ground floor apartment currently rented at £650.00pcm.  So if we look the asking price of £130,000 and work out the yield (we do that by taking the annual rental income and divide by the purchase price), it would give you an annual return of 6.0%!

This property would make a great investment, especially if you are a first time landlord and if you are and would like some free impartial advise about buy to let, please get in touch with me 01604 607080.

Northampton Property Values increase by 1.94% ... good or bad news?

“How's the Northampton housing market doing?” asked an upbeat Northampton landlord last week.  “Quite strange” I replied. Our landlord was perplexed! Let me explain…

Even the Brexit vote has not hindered Northampton’s steady rise in property value, as Northampton property values went up 1.94% last month alone, leaving Northampton values 12.09% higher than a year ago. An increase in demand from buyers and an uninspiring level of supply (i.e. the number of properties on the market) has driven up the value of the Northampton’s housing.

... And that is where the issue is. With Brexit, the coalition of the 2010-15, double dip recession and post credit crunch fallout – I was perplexed that the Northampton property market (and values) has remained so strong, still 20.1% higher than 20 months ago. That is until you start to look into the real reasons why we find ourselves in such a great place.

The Northampton (and the UK) housing market is built on the foundations of basic economic rules that any GCSE Economics student should understand. However, at a time when, as a country, we seem eager to uncouple ourselves from all manner of proven facts, anything is up for grabs.

Even the wary RICS said throughout the UK, most of its Chartered Surveyors anticipated house prices to increase in the next six months which seems contradictory given economic cautions from Mr Hammond and the HM Treasury. Even though inflation will rise to around 2% to 3% in 2017 and perhaps a little more in 2018 because of Sterling’s devaluation, together with a high probability of a decelerating GDP and a slight rise in unemployment, how can the RICS and most of my landlords be so confident about the value of our homes?

Well, look where we are starting from. Nationally, a base of low unemployment, low inflation and preposterously low-interest rates, while in Northampton, the local economy is doing quite well for itself. Confidence also plays a part. Confidence can supersede basic economic facts for a short time at least, which is why actual property market changes tend to be more exaggerated, as confidence can turn both positive and negative very quickly. The fact is, there is a long-term relationship between property values, wages and unemployment.

By April 2017, Article 50 will be invoked. This will bring additional political tomfooleries and economic ups and downs. With both purchasers and vendors predisposed by the 24 hour news cycle, which let’s face it, gets more haphazard by the day, it is likely to prove a challenging couple of years and yes, Northampton property values might drop slightly in 2017, but based on what we know of the UK plc now, the UK and Northampton property values are not projected to move that much over 2017 or 2018.  Going into the next two years, we are in much better financial shape as a country compared to the last two crashes of 1987 and 2008.

But, on the other side of the coin, what we also know is that we don't know much about the form of our economic future or indeed many other facets of our lives. Confidence will continue to be the key player in the Northampton housing market for a while longer - yet this may spur some much needed second-hand market activity! Now, where is my crystal ball?

The Northampton Autumn Property Update

Welcome to my 2016 Autumn property update.

Now this year the property market, not just here in Northampton,but across the UK has been hit by uncertainly, we had the EU referendum in June and before that in the spring, landlords and second home buyers had to contend with the stamp duty increase.
So how has this affected our Northampton's property market so far this year?
Well property values are up 1.7% on last month to leave an annual price growth at over 12%!

And when we looked back further over the last 18 months prices are on average 17% higher! Which compared to the 13 percent national average increase of the last 18 months, we’re not doing too badly!
When I looked at the property types, so detached, semi-detached, terraces and apartments, To see which had been performing best there wasn’t actually much in it.  The detached and semis performed best with over 18% increases, terraces were up over 17% and the apartments were up 15.6%.
Now There was a definite surge of properties being sold before the stamp duty change on the 1st of April 2016, From my research looking at our local area here
so the nn1 post code, in January this year 33 properties sold, in feb it was 35 and in march this figure jumped to 105.  Then in April and May the numbers dropped back to 34 and 38 properties being sold in these months.  So this may have accounted towards these increases.

But the challenge I see for buyers at the moment is the lack of choice, the levels of stock are still down causing a substantial demand and supply imbalance and until we see consistent and steady increases in properties coming on to the market we are likely to see continued increases in price,
perhaps not to the same extent as we have seen over the last 12 to 18 months but we might just see the market coming back into balance – which will be good news for everyone.
If you are looking to sell or let your property and wish to have free market appraisal, why not get in touch with me, I’m Katherine bond and you can call me at our letting and estate agency Northwood Northampton on 01604 607080.