Over the last 5 years, we have seen some interesting subtle changes to the East Grinstead property market as buying patterns of landlords have changed ever so slightly.
The background to this story was the recently published set of buy-to-let (BTL) lending statistics. Roll the clock back 12 months and 6,700 BTL mortgages were granted (in the same month) for £900m, meaning the average BTL mortgage was £134,200. Looking at last month’s figures, and as one might expect with the Brexit issue overhanging the property market, the lending figures were down, yet not by the amount I originally thought. Last month, just over 6,100 new buy-to-let mortgages were granted for a total sum of £800m (meaning the average landlord mortgage was a respectable £131,100). Yet, when I looked back to the boom year of the 2014 property market, in the corresponding same month, only £1,030 million was borrowed on 8,300 buy-to-let properties (meaning the average buy-to-let mortgage was £124,100). It seems Brexit is having no effect on landlords buying habits.
Looking closer to home in East Grinstead, throughout 2018, I have been regularly chatting to more and more landlords, be they seasoned professional East Grinstead BTL landlords or FTL’s (first time landlords) and their attitude is mostly positive. Instead of reading the scare-papers (oops sorry newspapers), those East Grinstead landlords that look with their eyes, will see the East Grinstead property market is doing reasonably well, with medium term rents and property values rising; as quite obviously from the mortgage figures .. landlords are still buying.
The question I get asked all the time is .. “What type of buy-to-let property should I buy? You can make money from property through both the rent (expressed as a yield when compared to the value of the property) and how the actual value of the home itself changes.
Since 2014, property values in East Grinstead have risen by 26.7%.
We have records of what each type of property (i.e. Detached/Semi/Terraced/Apartments) has achieved per square metre going back 20 years … and looking back over the last 5 years, these are the numbers ..
