Easy Peasy!

This property has just become available in Ramsgate. Within 0.25 mile to Ramsgate Train Station. It is in good rentable condition with modern kitchen that includes all the aplliances. There is outside space. The only downside to this property is the parking situation. However this is perfect for those who work in London. The property will rent in the region of £625 - £650 pcm giving you a yield of around 5.75% - 6% depending on how good a haggler you are! There is very minimal if any work needing doing so a tenant could be found immediately, meaning you will have very few costs before this one starts making you money! 

Selling agents are Miles and Barr in Ramsgate. Full particulars are here

 http://www.milesandbarr.co.uk/property/details/id/125044/#.VE5MxPmsU9Y

Winstanley Crescent or Dane Park Road...Which is the best investment?

I was talking to somebody last week about the St Lukes area of Ramsgate, she was considering becoming a landlord for the first time. She visited our office to ask us whether buying a property on Dane Park Road or Winstanley Crescent would make a better Buy to Let investment, and which would offer a better return/yield. She knew the area well, as she lived around there a few years ago. I confirmed that the properties on both streets let and sell well, but I wanted to do a bit more research to help with her choice...

The average price for a property on Winstanley Crescent is £141,404, while on Dane Park Road it was nearly 8% more, at £152,713. To better understand the investment opportunities available, we took a look at the rents achieved over the last year. The average rent achieved on Winstanley Crescent was £655 pcm giving a yield/return of 5.6%. On Dane Park Road the average rent was slightly lower, at £616 pcm, with a corresponding yield/return of 4.8%. We took a quick look to see what capital growth had been achieved in both roads and found that a 2 bedroom terrace in Dane Park Road was sold in 2000 for £46,000 and sold again earlier this year for £126,000 giving a capital growth of just over 93%. In Winstanley Crescent a similar property sold in 2000 for £51,950 and sold again in August this year for £149,500 giving a slightly higher capital growth of just under 97%. We found both streets to be as good as each other, but as you can see there is a difference in the yields/returns, which we would not have identified without the extra investigation. In this case it really comes down to the best available property to buy on the day.

If you are a landlord or investor, whether you deal with us or not, feel free to visit us at our office on Northdown Road to ask our opinion on which property investment is best for you.

Feeling confused about property investment? Get in touch gavin.horton@belvoirlettings.com

One House or Two Flats - What should you buy?

I often see investors who want to buy the biggest house they can find with their available cash.  But in the world of property investment we often find it is the investors who have divided their cash among as many properties as possible that benefit the most.  As an example I have seen that Ward and Partners are currently advertising a great family home in the Westcliff area of Ramsgate for £199,995.

It has all the hallmarks of being a great rental property, driveway, close to the train station and close to schools.  If I listed this house to rent the phone lines would go into meltdown with the amount of enquiries we would get.  Based on a buy to let mortgage of 75% the deposit would be around £50,000.  A conservative rental valuation would be £850 per month giving a yield of around 5.1%.

However if you had £50,000 cash I would be telling you to increase your yield, simply by buying two smaller properties.  I have seen a 2 bedroom maisonette on the other side of town being advertised at £99,995 and another 2 bedroom maisonette around the corner on Hardres Street for the same price.  Obviously not as attractive as the house, there are no driveways but the office phone would still ring and we would have tenants very quickly for both.  The £50,000 will buy both of these properties with a 25% deposit and I would give a conservative rental figure of £575 on each.  Combine both rents and that gives a rental yield of 6.9% - 27% higher than the yield for the house!

Here at Belvoir, we don’t sell properties so you can be 100% confident that our advice is impartial and will help ensure you won’t be pushed in to buying something that isn’t suitable when you visit estate agents. 

Great BTL property!

Great little BTL property here. Two double bedrooms and ready to rent straight away, keeping costs down! Id expect this property to rent in the region of £650-£675 pcm giving a gross yield of around 5.7 - 6%! Demand is high in this area so finding a decent tenant will not be difficult. We recently let an almost identical property not far from this one on the second day of marketing!  

See the full details here http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32559492.html

Margate has some of the most affordable properties in the South East

An Investor came in to our office earlier this week to discuss the affordability of property in Margate, with the current national property market being in recovery with increasing house prices. The best advice I can give to those looking to invest in property is our secret trick of the trade. You can judge the affordability of a town by simply finding the ratio of the average property price to the average salary. The lower the ratio, the more affordable property is.

When we put this to the test, we found that Margate currently has an average property value of around £151,759 with the average salary being £19,810. This is a respectable ratio of 1 to 7.6. Meanwhile in Herne Bay, the average asking price is £196,289 with the average salary being £21,006. The ratio of property values to salary is 1 to 9.4, which suggests the property in Herne Bay is 21% less affordable than in Margate.

We also had a look at Deal and found the average salary is £21,923 and the average property value is £204,298. This means that property in Deal is also a rather significant 20% less affordable than Margate, with a ratio of 1 to 9.3.

This could mean that now is a brilliant time to invest in Margate’s property market, while the average value of property is low compared to the average salary.

If you would like to talk to us about your potential investment or to see if you are maximising the potential of your current investments, please come into our office along Northdown road in Cliftonville or alternatively drop me an email on gavin.horton@belvoirlettings.com.

How is the local property market performing in Sandwich?

I have recently been helping a Landlord who has invested in rental properties throughout Thanet and was interested in extending her portfolio, but as a side project she asked me about the property market in her home town of Sandwich. Now we don’t actually cover that area with our property management service but I was more than happy to look into the market and see how it has been performing.

What I found out was quite interesting. The average value of a property in Sandwich is £284,942 which is £48,523 above the average of its neighbouring town of Deal. The most expensive street in Sandwich is St. Georges Place where an average property is worth in excess of £700,000. Only 13 properties have been sold in this street since the summer of 1995.

The most expensive property sold in Sandwich was a fantastic property on Strand Street, which sold for £757,000 in 2008. Quite recently, in April in fact, another property in Strand Street became the second most expensive property in Sandwich at £740,000. The average rent in Sandwich over the last 3 years has been £740 per month. According to land registry 103 properties have been sold in the last 12 months. Overall sale prices in Sandwich were up 11% on the previous year and 4% higher than the peak of 2007, this is slightly better than Deal who boast a 10% rise in the previous year and a 3% increase on the 2007 levels.

If you would like to come and discuss property in the area or need some advice on investing in property across the Isle of Thanet then you are welcome to visit our office in Margate or pick up the phone and give me a ring. 

Thanet Property - Do you know the Facts and Figures?

Here at Belvoir, we can guide you to the right places to identify property values and yields in Thanet and other useful property related information so you can make sure you get all the information you need about your future investments. Here are just a few property facts about our towns in Thanet....

There are 511 streets in the CT9 postcode area with 22,192 households, and of all those households 2,719 have changed hands in the last 5 years. In the Ramsgate area of CT11 there are 391 streets with 15,173 households and in the last 5 years 2,192 have changed hands. If we turn our attention to Broadstairs we can see there are 381 streets in the CT10 postcode with 12,628 households, and again looking at the last 5 years we can see that a little over 16% of these (2,070 to be precise) have changed hands. 

If I concentrate on Margate for this instance, we can report that compared to the national average – detached houses in Margate make up 15.34% of households with the national average being a little over 23%. Semi-detached houses make up 24.26% with the national average being 28%, 33.82% of households are terraced houses with the national average just above 31% and 26.58% of households are made up of flats compared to 17.28% nationally. Along with the fact that nearly 38% of occupants are in the privately rented sector we believe this is a good indication that Margate is a good place to buy a buy to let property.

If you would like more useful facts and figures pop in to see us at our office, we are situated along Northdown road in Cliftonville.