Will the young generation of Warrington people ever own their own home?

I had the most interesting chat with a mature couple (in their early/mid 50’s) from Penketh the other day, whilst viewing one of our rental properties. The property wasn’t for them, but their son, who wanted a second viewing with his parents to get the parental blessing. Now I know that isn’t the norm, but in this case the parents were going to act as guarantor. We got chatting about the Warrington property market and how they had bought their first property in the town just after they got married in the late 1980’s when they were in their early/mid 20’s. Anyway, we got chatting about how the youngsters of the UK seem to rent more than buy nowadays and from that the conversation covered a number of similar topics. I want to share the highlights of that conversation with you today.

Their son, like many 20 to 30 year olds in Warrington, desperately wants to own his own property and the parents said he had read in the Telegraph recently, when you compare house prices to earnings, the current 20 to 30 something’s generation have to spend more of their salary in mortgage payments than any previous generation. The demand for private rental sector accommodation in Warrington is huge. There are in fact over 50,000 private rental properties in Warrington at the last count, impressive when you consider there are 47,906 council houses in the town. However, let us not forget 180,300 properties are owner occupied.

Let us all be honest, private renting doesn’t have the stigma it had a few decades ago and it might surprise people that even though us Brit’s class ourselves as a nation of homeowners, roll the clock back 100 years and over 75% of people rented their own home (and it was all from private landlords as council housing only started to come in with the ‘homes for hero’s’ after the first World War). It might also surprise you to learn that at the time of the 1971 census, still more people rented than owned their own home.

Looking at the affordability issue, I have proved time and time again, it is in fact cheaper to buy a property than rent, when one looks at starter homes for first time buyers. 95% mortgages have been available to first time buyers for over four years and whilst you could certainly find better properties in better condition in better areas, terraced houses can be bought for as little as the mid £80,000’s in wa1, wa2, wa4, wa5 areas of Warrington (meaning a modest deposit of £4,000 would be required).

When it came to affordability, I was able to tell them that when they bought their first house in Warrington in 1988, the ratio of house prices to salary was 8.64 to 1 in Warrington ... and here was the surprise for both of us, today’s ratio is only 7.33 to 1!

I said I believed there had been a cultural attitude change towards renting property in Britain and that this quiet revolution was likely to be permanent. In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, saving for the deposit was everything and buying a house was everything. Youngsters today have far much more disposal income today than people had in the Callaghan and Thatcher years, but choose to spend it upgrading their mobile phones every 12 months, the newest tablet or PC, a newest 50” plasma LCD TV and two sun drenched holidays a year, than go without and save for a deposit.

Yes, there are horror stories of tenants living in rat infested properties with landlords who charge massive rents and don’t repair their properties. But that is very much the exception as most tenants rent homes of a quality they couldn’t ever to afford to buy. Twenty years ago, if you said you rented a property, you were considered the lowest of the low ... but now it’s the norm.

So with mortgage affordability being well within the bounds of most first time buyers, the level of deposit required for a 95% being surprisingly modest (starting off at £4,000 in Warrington as mentioned above) until we change our attitudes, the UK housing market is slowly but surely turning into a more European model, where people rent for long periods of their life, then eventually inherit their parents properties and subsequently become homeowners themselves, albeit later in life.

Hence, I cannot see the demand for decent, high quality rental properties ever dropping in the next 10 to 20 years, but only ever increasing as the population continues to soar. Just make sure you buy the right property, at the price, in the right location.


If you are a landlord or thinking of becoming one for the first time, and you want to read more articles like this about the Warrington Property Market together with regular postings on what I consider the best buy to let deals in Warrington, out of the many of properties on the market, irrespective of which agent is selling it, then feel free to get in touch!  email me on manoj@hamletwarrington.co.uk  

if you are in the area feel free to pop into the office we are based on6 Bankside, Crosfield St, WA1 1UP plenty of free parking and the kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Warrington Property News. 

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/hamlethomeswarrington

Twitter, https://twitter.com/HHWarrington

Website, http://www.hamlethomeswarrington.co.uk/

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3 Bed semi in Warrington with MASSIVE 13% yield

Click here to view property details

Good Afternoon readers - so I thought I would share this 3 bedroom semi in Warrington. It is on the market for £85k with our friends over at Edwards Grounds.

This is not the usual 2 up 2 down I tend to post - This lovely 3 bed semi on Dorothea St in Orford has a lot of potential and is an ideal invest for someone who can do a lot of work themselves such as a builder. I believe the owners will take £80k for this property. 


As you can see the property inside is dated so a new kitchen and bathroom and decorating throughout - if we round up and say works will cost £10k then the achievable rent would be around the £550pcm mark. giving you a yield of 7.3%

This property can be made more desirable by knocking the wall down between the kitchen and dining room and having a open kitchen diner area. Alternatively as it stands this property can be a 4 bedroom HMO (lounge becomes bedroom 1. dining room becomes bedroom 2 etc). Letting each room out individually for around £80pw when full would give you as an investor £1389.66 income pcm then minus the rent of one room to pay for the council tax utilities + cost to supply wifi (£350) Still over £1k from this 3 bedroom semi achieving a yield of 13%

Want to know more on how to do this and what options you have?

Come in and chat to me my office is based on 6 Bankside, Crosfield St, Warrington, WA1 1UP or drop me an email on manoj@hamletwarrington.co.uk you can always give me a call on 01925 235 338

Warrington Landlords - Widen your target market without changing your property portfolio.

The next largest group in Warrington is pet owners. It is sadly the case that many landlords choose not to accept pets, due to fears about cats scratching carpets or curtains, dogs chewing woodwork, leaving dirty marks on walls, causing the carpets to smell or even worse, cause flea infestations. What we have found recently is that people with pets will sometime offer to pay extra rent or pay an extra bond for the pet in order to secure a home that is pet friendly, or are happy to take a slightly older, more tired property which is not in its prime and is therefore unlikely to suffer terribly from having a pet, and as a landlord this could be a way of you letting out a property that may be difficult to let. We personally ensure that any pet owner would have to have the carpets professionally cleaned when they leave to eradicate any trace of smell or flea larvae, and this is not unexpected by the tenants anyway. Have a look at the letswithpets website for ideas on how you can work around this issue:

  

http://www.letswithpets.org.uk/home/welcome                                                                      
  

Another increasingly common situation that we are faced with in Warrington is that of trying to accommodate extended families, with 3 generations living under the same roof or a group of siblings plus other halves wanting to share larger properties. Without getting into the realms of HMOs (Houses of Multiple Occupation), we can still draw up safe and legal tenancies for these groups and it is a way of finding a cohesive group of people with shared responsibility for a large property without having to let it out on a room-by-room basis.

  

All of the above solutions require a landlord to spend nothing at all, just take a slightly different approach to who they would consider best fits the profile of the property, and in cases where a mortgage has to be paid, this could be the type of action that would mean the difference between covering costs and being financially burdened.

If you are having difficulty renting you property, speak to us for impartial advice and guidance to get the best possible tenants to match your individual situation. For more information about other potential issues we could help you with, or to ask about our thoughts on your own ideas, call us now on 01925 235338 or email me on manoj @hamletwarrington.co.uk If you are ever in the area then pop into our office 6 Bankside, Crosfield St WA11UP the kettle is always on.

What will the property trends be in Warrington in 2016?

I had an interesting chat with a landlord who uses another letting agent in Warrington after he popped into our offices for a coffee whilst his wife was doing some last minute Christmas shopping in . We got talking about the Warrington property market and thought other landlords might be interested.

You see, property values didn’t start leaping forward in Warrington until early 2013. Throughout the remainder of 2013, prices steadily increased. In 2014, property prices really rocketed. Several factors were in play here which caused this ‘property price bubble’. The public had more faith in the property market, having seen the activity from the previous year and also news headlines were encouraging, mortgage products became more available to first time buyers and also people who hadn’t been able to sell in previous years due to negative equity or just the property slump, suddenly were coming to market.

In 2015, whilst we have still seen a reasonable increase in property values. The start of the years was a bit slower, with the general election looming and people ‘waiting and seeing’ what was going to happen, however it did pick up almost straight away afterwards. We have also had the change with pensions this year, allowing people to have access to their money, which has brought out some new buy to let Landlords to the market.

As I mentioned in last weeks article, the Warrington market has become a lot more stable, with the increase in property values being more sustainable. This is due to the balance between supply and demand being closer together, (although still more demand than supply). This should mean that the Warrington property market will continue to steadily rise for the foreseeable future.

However, we have got the possibility of a possible Interest rate rise on the horizon. This could stem the flow of buyers if the interest rates go crazy whilst they wait to see what happens with them. This could potentially flip the balance between supply and demand the other way. This would of course be worse case scenario, if the interest rise is done slowly and in small increments as it has been reported it will happen, then it should make that much of an impact on the Warrington property market.

The advice I would give to landlords is, as always, don’t just buy any old property in Warrington. First time landlords need to be cautious. The doubling of house prices every seven to ten years which has taken place since WW2 doesn’t seem to have been seen since the mid 2000’s. The property market is shifting with more properties being built and restrictions put on mortgage lending, the likelihood of the property market increasing at the same levels as the past are questionable. But investing in property is also about receiving the rent.

On the one hand going for high yielding Warrington property to rent out seems an obvious choice, but high yielding property often doesn’t go up in value that well and in some circumstances doesn’t keep up with inflation, meaning in real terms you have a depreciating asset. So surely you should pick a property that has great capital growth then, because of the obvious potential to generate long term capital profit, especially with inflation eating away at our savings. However, rental yields on high capital growth properties (in areas such as Chapleford Village, Edgewater Park (New Morris Estate), Particular areas of Stockton Heath & Grappenhall  tend to be low, meaning if you are taking a high percentage mortgage, the rent doesn’t pay the mortgage payments.

However don’t let this put you off, If you keep an eye on the Warrington Property Blog you will notice I share property deals around Warrington, some which produce great yields and some with great future growth. Its all about knowing where to look and having great relationships with the new developers in town. Having the numbers/ stats and the relationships built up in the town Hamlet Homes can work closely with you and find the right Investment property for you in Warrington

As always, my door is always open for both current and new landlords alike. If you want to pop in for a chat about investing in Warrington, I’m always happy to give my honest opinion.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Warrington Property News. 

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/hamlethomeswarrington

Twitter, https://twitter.com/HHWarrington

Website, http://www.hamlethomeswarrington.co.uk/

#warrington #investments #property #warrington #landlords #buytolet #property-buy #capital-growth #investments #property #property-capital-growth #warrington  #letting-agent #lettings-agent #letting-agents #lettings-agents #Investors