Asfordby Hill for sale at £106,000 - 6.2% return

This property is on the market for £106,000 with Melton Premier. It is a 2 bed terrace in an area that is popular with people renting due to the convenient location for commuting to Leicester and Nottingham and the primary school around the corner. 

We let properties on this road for £ 550 pcm and this should achieve that. This would give a potential return of 6.2%.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44093758.html

Melton Mowbray House Price Monopoly: How do Prices vary?

Whether you are a homeowner or landlord in Melton Mowbray, what would a Monopoly board look like today in the town? Property prices over the last 80 years have certainly increased beyond all recognition, so looking at the original board, I have substituted some of the original streets with the most expensive and least expensive locations in Melton Mowbray today.

Initially, I have focused on the LE13 postcode only, looking at the Brown Squares on the board, the ‘new’ Old Kent Road in Melton Mowbray today would be Bramley Close, with an average value £48,400 (per property) and Whitechapel Road would be Drummond Walk, which would be worth £90,100. 

What about the posh dark blue squares of Park Lane and Mayfair? Again, looking at LE13, Park Lane would be Hunt Drive at £329,600 and Mayfair would be Kirby Lane at £420,200. However, look a little further afield from the LE13 postcode, and such roads as Pickwell Road in Leesthorpe would claim the Mayfair card at £765,000! 

Also, I can’t forget the train stations (my favourite squares), and over the last 12 months, the average price that property within a quarter mile of the station sold for was £215,950.

So that got me thinking what you would have had to have paid for a property in Melton Mowbray back in 1935, when the game originally came out?

•         The average Melton Mowbray detached house today is worth £322,320 would have set you back 538 Pounds 3 shillings and 8 old pence.
•         The average Melton Mowbray semi detached house today is worth £175,510 would have set you back 317 Pounds and 11 shillings.
•         The average Melton Mowbray terraced / town house today is worth £148,680 would have set you back 269 Pounds and 1 old pence.
•        The average Melton Mowbray apartment today is worth £118,590 would have set you back 214 Pounds 11 shillings and 3 old pence.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this bit of fun, but underlying all this is one important fact. Property investing is a long game, which has seen impressive rises over the last 80 years. 

In my previous articles I have talked about what is happening on a month by month or year by year basis and if you are going to invest in the Melton Mowbray property market, you should consider the Melton Mowbray property you buy a medium to long term investment, because Buy to let is pretty much what it sounds like – you buy a property in order to rent it out to tenants.

As I reminded a soon to be first time landlord from Thorpe Arnold the other week, Buy to let in Melton Mowbray (as in other parts of the Country) is very different from owning your own home. When you become a Melton Mowbray landlord, you are in essence running a small business – one with important legal responsibilities. 

On that note, I want to remind landlords of the recent and future changes in legislation when it comes to buy to let. This year, rules have changed about tenant deposits, carbon monoxide detectors and early in the New Year, landlords will have responsibilities to do immigration checks on all their tenants. Failure to adhere to them will mean a minimum of heavy fines in the thousands or in some cases, prison ... it’s a mine field!  

That’s why I write the Melton Mowbray Property Blog, where it has an extensive library of articles like this one, where I talk about what is happening in the Melton Mowbray property market, what to buy (and sometimes not) in Melton Mowbray and everything else that is important to know as a Melton Mowbray landlord. 

Asfordby potential 5.5% return

I have overlooked this property on the market with Harrison Murray as I have not seen many houses on this street come up for sale and be presented so nicely. This one inside has been really well finished and is on the market for £120,000.

It would let for £550 pcm giving a potential return of 5.5%. Definitely worth a viewing.

Click on the link to look at the floor plan...

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52250062.html

The Melton Mowbray Property Market and £1,300,000,000,000,000,000 in loose change

The 5^th of March 2009 was the date Mervyn King, the then Bank of England Governor, slashed UK interest rates to the unparalleled figure of 0.5%. 

In just under five months, starting on 8^th October 2008, the rate had come down from 4.5% to that low figure, all in an attempt to ensure the British economy survived the worldwide credit crunch. Now as we deck the halls with bows of holly nobody expected that, over six years later, rates would still be at that low level.

In the summer, people were predicting a rise in the New Year, yet now, some forecast it may remain the same for years to come the due to the issues in China. 

What I do know, speaking to my Melton Mowbray friends and Melton Mowbray landlords is that these low interest rates have hit savers really hard.

If you added up everyone’s bank and building society savings in the UK, they would add up to £1,300,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s £1.3 trillion), most of which is earning a pittance in interest.  That is why more and more 40 and 50 year old Melton Mowbray landlords have been investing some of that cash into Melton Mowbray bricks and mortar, as they search for a low risk investment opportunity.

Buying a Melton Mowbray buy to let property isn’t risk free, but there are certainly things you can do to mitigate and lower one’s exposure to risk. You see by buying a rental property, it potentially offers a decent proposition in terms of being able to obtain attractive returns that beat inflation and savings accounts, yet without taking the levels of risk associated with stock markets.

The UK residential property market has long been the safest form of collateral for lenders of all varieties. Against a backdrop of a greatly changing economic environment, Melton Mowbray house prices have been extraordinarily robust, increasing by over 1715.3% between 1974 and today. Some will say there have been significant property price falls, namely in 1975, 1988 and 2008, yet each time after this has been followed by an upturn in property values. For the record, the stock markets in the same time frame only rose by 432.5%!

.. and that is the best thing about buy to let property. Unlike the stock market, with its unfathomable equities, shares and bonds, that nobody really understands (as they are controlled by some faceless whizzkid in Canary Wharf!) with a buy to let property, landlords can take control and understand their investment .. in fact you can touch and feel the bricks and mortar investment.

..  but before you go out and buy any old Melton Mowbray property, plenty of landlords still get it wrong. You have to be aware of your legal responsibilities when it comes to tenant safety, tenants deposits, energy certificates and in the new year, landlords will have the added responsibility of checking the immigration status of prospective tenants. Get it wrong and big fines and even prison is an option – but that’s why many agents use a letting agent to manage their property for them.

Next, you have to buy the right property at the right price. Recently I have seen some really heart breaking situations in Melton Mowbray and the immediate area, of people paying way too much for a property, only to lose out when they came to sell. One example that comes to mind is that of a property owner in an apartment on Buttermere Close (just off the A607) .. a decent, well presented, two bed, ground floor, apartment, 54 sq metres inside (581 sq ft in old money) sold in October 2006 for £110,700. In the summer, it only obtained £100,000, a drop of 9.67% or 1.15% a year - a very disappointing result.

I cannot stress enough the importance of doing your homework. One source of information and advice is the Melton Mowbray Property Blog or please pick up the phone and give me a call, I am always happy to talk about the Melton Mowbray Property market!

Has Osborne killed the buy to let market in Melton Mowbray?

Well George Osborne, in his Autumn statement, caused Melton Mowbray landlords to ask whether buy to let is a viable investment option, when he announced that landlords, when buying another buy to let property from April 2016 will have to pay an additional 3% stamp duty on top of the standard rate.  

So if an investor wanted to buy a property in Melton for £123,000, before they would not have had to pay a penny in stamp duty, but from April next year it will be  £3,690. Move up market and it means that the stamp duty bill for a £285,000 buy to let home will rise from the current £4,250 to £12,800 from April next year. 

Some say property in Melton Mowbray will be worth less because potential landlords will not be willing to pay as much for them, and if house builders or existing homeowners don't feel they are going to get as much for them, then there is less motivation to build / sell them?... and the person we can blame for this is George himself. Back in 2012, he chose to utilise the British housing market to kick start the UK economy, with  subsidies, Funding for Lending and Help to Buy.

Others say this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back as over the next four years Landlords will slowly lose the ability to offset all their mortgage interest against tax on rental income, after changes announced in the Summer Budget. At the moment, landlords can claim tax relief on buy to let mortgage monthly interest repayments at the top level of tax they pay (ie 40% or 45%). 

However, over the next four years this will be reduced slowly to the basic rate of tax – currently 20%.

Surely this is the end of Buy to Let in Melton Mowbray? Probably.. but before we all run to hills panicking .. let me give you another thought.

Stamp Duty rules were changed in December 2014. Before then, landlords were eagerly buying up properties under the ‘old slab style Stamp Duty’ system. For example, the stamp duty bill on that £285,000 property was lower on the old slab style duty (pre Dec 2014), at £8,550, yet it isn’t a million miles away from new £12,800 stamp duty bill. Interestingly though, George has left a legal loophole in the new rules, because when it comes to selling up, they can offset purchase costs against any eventual capital gains tax, including stamp duty.

I believe that total returns from buy to let will continue to outpace other investments, such as the stock market, gilts, bonds and even pensions. Also, the best part about investing in property is that it is bricks and mortar. You can touch it, you can feel it, and it isn’t controlled by some City whiz kid in Canary Wharf .. the British understand property and that goes a long way!

Buy to let has enough impetus behind it that prospective landlords will continue to buy even with a larger stamp duty bill. Melton Mowbray landlords will need to be savvy with what property they buy to ensure the extra stamp duty costs are mitigated.   Buying buy to let property is a long term venture. 

Now with these extra taxes, the adage of ‘any old Melton Mowbray house will make money’ has gone out the window.   You wouldn’t dream of investing in the stock market without at least looking in the newspapers or taking advice and opinion from others, so why wouldnt you take the same advice and opinion about buying a buy to let property in Melton Mowbray? please feel free to give me a call for honest, unbiased advice on potential buy to let investments. 01664 569700

Blyth Avenue - great investment for sale at £125,000

This property has been listed by Harrison Murray and is on the market for just under £125,000. Although it has a shower room it would easily let for £550 pcm - potential 5.2% return. 

These types of properties are popular with professional couples as they are a nice size and have a manageable garden.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52344043.html

Melton Mowbray Property Market Values

Many landlords have been asking me my thoughts on the Melton Mowbray property market recently, and in particular, what is happening to property values.   My calculations show property values in Melton Mowbray grew in the month of September by 1.9%.   

When one looks at the annual growth, Melton Mowbray values are 6.9% higher (when comparing Sept 14 to Sept 15), impressive when you consider the annual growth of property values dropped to only 0.7% per annum in May.   

There are signs, however,  that the fundamental growth of property values in Melton Mowbray has now peaked, despite those average property values being below levels recorded in 2007 (just before the 2008 crash).

Whilst the Melton Mowbray headline rate appears to be better, i.e. the year on year (Sept 14 to Sept 15) growth rate of 6.9% is obviously better than the drop of 0.7% in May 14 to May 15), this impressive rise of Melton Mowbray property values masks the underlying truth in what is really happening to local property values in the town.  

Throughout 2015, property values have been yo-yo like on a month by month basis, for example,

•          September 2015             1.9% rise
•          August 2015                   0.2% rise
•          July 2015                       2.3% rise
•          June 2015                      0.4% rise
•          May 2015                       0.3% drop
•          April 2015                      0.4% drop
•          March 2015                    2.7% drop

This is in part due to seasonal factors, as well as mortgage approvals increasing over June and July then falling by over 15% in August, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).

The outlook for the Melton Mowbray property market remains positive against the foundations of low mortgage rates and growing consumer confidence. 

On a positive note, Melton Mowbray property values are still running ahead of salaries and average property values are 5.1% below the levels recorded in 2007.

Readers might be interested to note that before the 2008 property crash, all the UK region’s housing markets tended to move up and down in tandem.   Since then though, the Greater London property market took off like a rocket in 2009/10, whilst the rest of the UK only really started to grow in 2012/13, and even then that growth was a lot more modest than the Capital’s.  

Looking closer to home, it can even be different in neighbouring towns, areas and cities, so whilst Melton Mowbray property values are 6.9% higher than a year ago, Leicester property values are 4.1% higher than a year ago.

I cannot stress enough the importance of doing your homework.  

One source of information and advice is the Melton Mowbray Property Blog where I have similar articles to this about the Melton Mowbray property market and what I consider to be the best buy to let deals around at any one time in the town, irrespective of which agent it is on the market with.  please feel free to give me a call 01664 569700

Modern 3 bed new to the market - Valiant Way, Melton Mowbray

As I have mentioned before, nearly new homes make a wise investment choice.  Always popular with tenants, with little maintenance, plus warranties in case things do go wrong, here is a great example of such a property.  

Being marketed by Connells, this is a 3 bed property situated on a popular development close to good schools and within walking distance of the town centre.

Looks to be in good order so should be a quick and easy process to letting your next investment property.

Full details can be found here:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56322002.html