£9,100 boost to Maidenhead First time buyers

There’s a whole legion of wannabe Maidenhead first-time buyers keen to get on the property ladder and they now have a 3% price advantage over the previously quicker responding army of Maidenhead landlords with cash at the ready. Since the start of April, buy to let landlords have had to pay an additional 3% stamp duty so whilst demand from some Maidenhead buy to let landlords has dropped away, in the interim, it offers Maidenhead first time buyers (FTB’s) a chance to fill the vacuum with less competition from cash rich landlords (over two thirds of BTL properties were purchased without a mortgage in the last 7 years) who could bid more and complete quicker.

Looking at the average value of an apartment in Maidenhead currently standing at £304,400, that means if our Maidenhead FTB went up against a Maidenhead landlord, the landlord would have to pay an additional £9,132 in stamp duty. Early anecdotal evidence from fellow property professionals in the town is suggesting landlords are reducing their offers slightly on Maidenhead properties to reflect the extra stamp duty.  

Whilst on the face of it, it appears landlords are being punished by No.11 Downing Street, I actually believe this increase in stamp duty for landlords is a good thing for the Maidenhead property market as a whole.

Since 2011/12, the Maidenhead property market has performed very well indeed. Over the last 12 months, £535,341,400 has been spent buying 1,075 Maidenhead properties.  Recent figures from the Land Registry have just been released and month on month in our council area, property values are 0.6% higher, yet 9.2% higher year on year. These figures are nowhere near the heady days of 2000 (June to be exact), when Maidenhead property prices rose by 25.5% in 12 months….. and given the current economic and political climate all the indicators suggest prices have now flat lined and will continue in that fashion for the foreseeable future.

So as property values in Maidenhead (and the UK as whole) start to stablise and come back to some kind of balance, I am beginning to see savvy landlords view the Maidenhead property market in a different light. Even with the Spring rush, gone are the days where you could make limitless money on anything that had a door, a few windows and roof. This stamp duty change has made more and more landlords, after reading the Maidenhead Property Market Blog http://maidenheadpropertyblog.blogspot.co.uk take advice on what or not to buy and what to pay, meaning Maidenhead landlords are being more calculated with their Maidenhead BTL purchases.

Now I know a lot of Maidenhead landlords brought forward their BTL purchases to beat the stamp duty deadline. However, it is probable that hunger from Maidenhead investors will return for the right Maidenhead property later in the year, especially if it’s at the right price and offers a decent yield. However, in the meantime, Maidenhead FTB’s could and should, in the short term, make hay whilst the sun shines plug the gap and try and grab a bargain!

College Rise, Maidenhead - 3 Bedroom Semi Detached - Popular Location

Good evening, this has just come to the market today with Roger Platt.... Price wise this is probably at the top end of this area but then it does have 3 bedrooms! This area is very popular with investors because demand still remains high from tenants.... even though the sales market as certainly cooled off off over the past few months.

It's on with Roger Platt for £525K and is well worth giving them a call.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/41173860

College Glen, Maidenhead - 2 Bed end of terrace - May have potential...?

Good evening - Not much to go on with this one yet so you will have to give the guys at Chancellors a call for more details. At a glance this looks like it could be a good one for all you investors.... you could expect a rental income of over £1,000 PCM.... there could be some work involved though to get this back on the rental market? 

Click below for more details.... it's on the market for £400K 

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/41118263

Kingsquarter, Maidenhead - 1 Bedroom Flat - Great First Time Investment!

Afternoon everyone, this flat has just come on the market with Purple Bricks. If your budget can't quite stretch to £300K then this place could be great for expanding your property portfolio. Kingsquarter is situated in the Oldfield area which always popular with renters so you can expect minimal voids and a rental income of just under £1,000 PCM.

Take a look below for more details and pics...

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/41055450

15.19% slump in Maidenhead Property Transactions

In this post credit crunch world of sub terrain low interest and annuity rates so low a limbo dancer would smart, the growth of buy to let since 2009 has been phenomenal. So much so, there has been an evolution in purchase of property in the UK from that of just buying the roof over one’s head to that of a buy to let investment where it is seen as a standalone financial asset to fund current and future (i.e. pensions) investment. So recently, a few days before the release of latest Land Registry data of property transactions, quite a few market commenters were anticipating a huge increase in the number of properties sold in January as the 1st of April 2016 stamp duty deadline got closer.   

Looking at the most recent set of data from The Land Registry, it seems there has been a drop in the number of completed property sales in the Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council area. Year on year, completed property sales in January (the latest set of data released) fell by 15.19% to 134 compared with 158 in January 2015. Nationally, the number is similar, as the number of completed house sales fell by 5% in January 2016 compared with January 2015. Some might say this counters the reports that there was a rush by landlords to buy ‘buy to let’ property ahead of the 1st April 2016 deadline but where was the stampede that many expected?

Looking even closer to home, in the SL6 postcode in January 2016, 83 properties changed hands, whilst 82 properties did so in January 2015. It’s even more interesting when you look at the average price paid, in January 2016, it was £546,177 yet in January 2015, the average price paid was £446,725.

Is the buy to let dream over for Maidenhead landlords?

.. but as ever my Maidenhead Property Blog readers, the devil is in the detail. The 3% stamp duty surcharge for buy to let landlords was announced in the Autumn Statement on the 25th November 2015. Anyone who has bought a property knows from their offer being accepted to receiving the keys and monies paid is a long drawn out affair, taking on average 8 to 12 weeks, as the Land Registry only get notified upon completion of the sale. We also need to factor in that Solicitors seem to have the last two weeks of December off anyway.

So if there was a rush in the last few days of November/early December in the Maidenhead property market, we would only see the results of that in the February figures (released in June) and more probably March’s (released in July).

So why all the doom and gloom? Simple .. bad news sells newspapers and gets the headlines. Let’s be honest, the headline to this article is designed to be eye catching. However, when we look at both the bigger and smaller picture; nationally, property values dropped (month on month) by 0.5%; in the South East region they dropped 0.4%, whilst in Windsor and Maidenhead they rose by 0.6%. The year on year figures tell a completely different story to that.

It just goes to show you should look deeper into something before making a judgment! For more thought provoking commentary on the Maidenhead property market – please visit the Maidenhead Property Blog. 

1,603 Windsor and Maidenhead Properties lie empty - An injustice for the 200 people on the Windsor and Maidenhead Council House Waiting List?

Easy problems should have easy solutions  - shouldn’t they?

Problems like Maidenhead’s housing crisis, where we have a rudimentary numerical problem of too few homes for too many people ... the answer is clearly to build more property in Maidenhead - but that, unfortunately for those desperately seeking to purchase or let a property, takes a lot of time and huge amounts of money. So what of other solutions?

Whilst at a dinner with friends recently, the subject of property was mentioned (as I am sure it does at most dinner parties up and down the country). Normally someone always mentions empty properties as the solution to the problem. On the face of it, it seems so obvious. Now quite interestingly, I had recently done some research on this topic, which I want to share with you (as I did with those at the dinner table).

The most recent set of figures from 2015 state there are 1,603 empty homes in the Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council area. So it begs the question ... why not put them back onto the system and help ease the Maidenhead housing crisis? Whilst they stand empty, 200 Windsor and Maidenhead households (not people – households) are on the Council House Waiting List for council houses. Surely, we can undoubtedly all agree that property left empty for years and years isn’t morally right with the burgeoning Council House Waiting List, not to also mention the issue of homelessness.

But a different story emerges when you look deeper into the numbers. Of those 1,603 homes lying empty, only 679 properties were empty for more than six months. The local authority has to report a property being empty, even if it’s for a week. So many of the Maidenhead properties are either awaiting new homeowners or, in the case of rental properties, new tenants. Also most certainly, some properties are being refurbished and renovated, while others properties have homeowners who are anxious to sell but cannot find a buyer.

The fact is that the number of genuinely long term empty properties is only a tiny drop in the ocean of the 58,349 properties in the area covered by Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council and, even if every one of those empty homes were filled with happy cheerful tenants tomorrow, it would only meet a small fraction of Maidenhead housing needs.

So what does this mean for all the homeowners and landlords of Maidenhead? Well it means with demand being so high, especially for rental properties, the certainty of the rental market growing is an inevitability because young people cannot buy and councils don’t have the money to build new council houses. This in turn bolsters property prices as landlords continue to buy at the lower end of the market (starter homes, etc), which in turn sustains the rest of the market as those sellers move up the property ladder, releasing others in turn to buy on again.

These are interesting times in the Maidenhead property market!

Amerden Lane, Taplow - 3 Bed Terrace - Needs a work over!

Good morning, not too many places come up in Taplow so for that reason alone I thought this worth a look at....? Going back 6 months I would have predicted that this type of "doer upper" would have been on the market a matter of hours before it got snapped up, yet as I have mentioned in recent articles I think we are in for a period of stability.... i.e. flat line on house prices. If that is the case then this may hang around a little longer.... I will certainly be keeping my eye on it. 

If you fancy getting stuck into a project I would investigate further though and give the guys at Roger Platt a call, its on the market for £450K.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/41000055

27% of Maidenhead people Rent - Is that Healthy?

Renting used to be a dirty word in the 60’s and 70’s. You either lived in a ‘Rigsby Rising Damp’ style bedsit with wood chip on the wall and a coin operated electric meter (that buzzed in the night) or you lived in a council house. In the latter part of the 20th Century, the British were persuaded that rent payments were ‘wasted money’. However, owning often makes less financial sense than renting and as the rate of homeownership is starting to drop substantially, as we roll the clock forward to today, there is no stigma at all to renting .. everyone is doing it. In fact, of the 63,070 residents of Maidenhead, 17,190 of you rent your house from either the local authority/social provider (ie council house or housing association) or private landlords – meaning 27.25% of Maidenhead people are tenants.

The idea of homeownership is deeply embedded in the British soul, in fact 44,856 Maidenhead people live in an owner occupied property (or 71.12%). Housing is at the heart of Government policy, as George Osborne has promised 200,000 new properties a year so first time buyers can buy their first home whilst recently changing the tax laws for buy to let landlords. To get votes, Thatcher (and everyone since) ran election campaigns promising everybody their own home, and as a country, we seem to equate homeownership the goal of British life.

So as more and more people are renting nowadays, are we turning to a more European way of living….. quite ironic given the recent news! Well, I believe, as a country, we are. In fact, homeownership could be affecting your health! The UK, according to Bloomberg, is only the 21st most healthy country in the world. Germany is at No.10 and Switzerland at No.4 and homeownership is at 52.5% and 44% respectively in those countries (in the UK it is 64.8%).

In the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council area, 79.15% of homeowners who own their house outright said they were in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health whilst, at the other end of the scale, 4.69% said their health was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. Looking at renting, the census splits tenants into two types – 75.43% of Windsor and Maidenhead local authority/social tenants said they were in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health and 7.72% were in ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health …

… whilst ‘private rented tenants’ in Windsor and Maidenhead, were the healthiest, as 91.58% of them described themselves in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health and only 2.08% were in ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health

I am not suggesting that low homeownership rates in Switzerland and Germany are directly linked to health, nor, do I expect Brits to all go to Berlin, Interlaken or Düsseldorf and realise how happy people are when they don't need to worry about all the stresses which accompany homeownership. The numbers for Maidenhead do go some way to back up the argument (and they are the same across the whole of the UK). Nonetheless I do think that substantially all of the upside to homeownership in recent years has been a function of monumental rising house prices. Now that's come to an end, it's hard to see why anybody would want to buy?

Renting is here to stay in Maidenhead and it’s growing incrementally each year. Even with the new tax rules for landlords, buy to let is still a viable investment option for most people in the Town. There has never been a better time to buy buy to let property in Maidenhead, but buy wisely. Gone are the days that you would make profit on anything with four walls and a roof. Take advice, take opinion, do your homework. One place to do more homework, to read more articles on the Maidenhead Property market like this, is the Maidenhead Property Blog