landlords

Walsall needs to build 5,400 mixed tenure properties in 7 years..

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , ,
Walsall needs to build 5,400 mixed tenure properties in 7 years..
Walsall needs to build 5,400 mixed tenure properties in 7 years..

I was having a most interesting chat the other day with a Walsall landlord when we were looking at a property he was thinking of buying. As I am sure you are aware, I am always happy to cast my eye over any potential buy-to-let purchase in Walsall, be that you emailing me a Rightmove/ Zoopla link, a brochure in the post or even treading the carpet and seeing it together. I don’t charge for that, and you don’t even need to be a client of mine.

We got talking about the Walsall Property Market and this landlord brought up the subject of a report he had read that stated almost 1.8m new rental homes are needed by 2025 to keep up with current demand from tenants. He wanted to know what this meant for Walsall.

Well my blog reading friends, some commentators said last winter that buy-to-let was about to die, what with the new stamp duty changes and how mortgage tax relief will be calculated. Others even said 500,000 rental properties would flood the market nationally in the 12 months after the new Stamp Duty rules came into force on the 1st April 2016 as landlords left the rental market. Well, all I can say is, I wish all the landlords of those half a million properties would hurry up and put them on the market – because I have plenty of other potential landlords wanting to buy them!

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Walsall’s humble Semi-Detached house increased by 227% in value

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , ,
Walsall's humble semi increased in value by 227%
Walsall’s humble semi increased in value by 227%

The humble semi-detached house with its bay windows and net curtains has long been ridiculed as an emblem of safe, lacklustre and desperately uncool suburban life; the homes of the likes of Hyacinth Bucket in ‘Keeping up Appearances’ and more latterly Alan Partridge – but they could have the last laugh – having enjoyed one of the highest price growths of any property type in Walsall, up by an average 227% increase in the last twenty years!

The semi is, of course, still hugely popular on new build developments; although slightly more modern in appearance compared to its older ancestor!

The semi can now laugh in the face of its posher detached counterpart, which saw a rise of only 161% in the same 20-year period. Looking at smaller properties, flats/apartments rose 106%, whilst terraced houses did slightly better at 229% although they were starting from a lower base and demand from buy to let landlords has had a big part in driving up the values on that type of house based upon its rental potential.

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Humongous Change of Walsall’s Shared Households!!

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , ,
Humongous Change of Walsall’s Shared Households!!
Humongous Change of Walsall’s Shared Households!!

A day in the life of a Property Manager is never dull. One of the joys of my profession is meeting interesting people every day. If I had to choose who I enjoying meeting the most (landlords, tenants, contractors, developers, solicitors, other fellow professionals) then, I would have to say…landlords! The cogs of a landlord have always intrigued me and they can come up with some of the most interesting topics/ thoughts/ questions ever!!

The other day I met with a Walsall landlord who told me that he had been chatting with an architect friend of his who informed him that back in the mid 2000’s, the developments he was asked to draw up were a balance of one and two bed properties, compared to today where the majority of the buildings he is designing are more towards two and sometimes three bedrooms. Now of course, this was all subjective but it made me think if there was any truth in that and how this affected the Walsall property market?

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Walsall Unemployment Rates Drop to 7.3%! What Does This Mean for Walsall’s Property Owners?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , ,
Walsall Unemployment Rates Drop to 7.3%! What Does This Mean for Walsall’s Property Owners?
Walsall Unemployment Rates Drop to 7.3%! What Does This Mean for Walsall’s Property Owners?

It was late May 2016, The Right Hon. Member for Tatton, Mr George Osborne, published an official HM Treasury analysis stating UK house prices would be lower by at least 10% (and up to 18%) by the middle of 2018 compared with what is expected if the UK remained in the European Union.  So, eight months on from the Referendum, are we beginning to show signs of that prophecy?

The simple answer is yes and no.

Good barometers of the housing market are the share prices of the big UK builders. Much was made of Barratt’s share price dropping by 42.5% in the two weeks after Brexit, along with Taylor Wimpey’s equally eye watering drop in the same two weeks by 37.9%. Looking at the most recent set of data from the Land Registry, property values in Walsall are 5.75% up month on month (however, the month before that, they had seen decrease of 0.1%) – so is this the time to panic and shout?

Doom and Gloom then?  Well, let me consider the other side of the coin.

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Is the Walsall Buy to Let Market Over-Saturated?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , ,
Is the Walsall Buy to Let Market Over-Saturated?
Is the Walsall Buy to Let Market Over-Saturated?

If I were a buy to let landlord in Walsall today, I might feel a little bruised by the assault made on my wallet after being (and continuing to be) ransacked over the last 12 months by HM Treasury’s tax changes on buy to let.

To add insult to injury, Brexit has caused a tempering of the Walsall property market with property prices not increasing by the levels we have seen in the last few years.  There is even a possibility we might even see a very slight drop in property prices this year and, if Walsall property prices do drop, the downside to that is that first time buyers could be attracted back into the Walsall property market; meaning less demand for renting ( ie rents will go down).

Before we all run for the hills, all these things could be serendipitous to every Walsall landlord, almost a blessing in disguise.

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Are Walsall Pensioners ‘Trapped’ in their Homes?!

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , ,
Are Walsall Pensioners ‘Trapped’ in their Homes?!
Are Walsall Pensioners ‘Trapped’ in their Homes?!

During a site visit last week I was approached by a mature, friendly gentleman who lives next door to one of the properties I manage in Pelsall. He lives in a Bungalow, which is one of my favourite property types that he owns outright (mortgage free). We got talking about the Walsall property market and then he mentioned something which piqued my curiosity. How many other Walsall pensioners are in a similar situation?!

Walsall people aged over 65 currently hold more housing wealth in their homes than the annual GDP of the whole of Northumberland (strictly speaking a county can’t have a GDP, but as everyone knows the phrase, it works for comparison purposes!)

This is a problem for everyone in Walsall!

Many retiree’s want to move but cannot, as there is a shortage of such homes for mature people to downsize into. Due to the shortage, bungalows command a 10% to 20% premium per square foot over houses of the same size with stairs. To add to the woes, in 2014, just 1% of new builds in the UK were bungalows, according to the National House Building Council – down from 7% in 1996.

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Have Walsall Rents Truly Risen?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , ,
Have Walsall Rents Truly Risen?
Have Walsall Rents Truly Risen?

Back in the Spring, there was a surge in Walsall landlords buying buy-to-let property in as they tried to beat George Osborne’s stamp duty changes which kicked in on the 1st April 2016. If you are a football fan, think of it like transfer deadline day!

To give you an idea of the sort of numbers we are talking about, below are the property statistics for sales either side of the deadline in the WS1 postcode taken from the Land Registry;

Jan 2016 – 20 properties sold

Feb 2016 – 19 properties sold

March 2016 – 36 properties sold

April 2016 – 9 properties sold

May 2016 – 17 properties sold

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Walsall’s Spare Rooms..Perhaps the Answer to our Housing Crisis?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , ,
Walsall’s Spare Rooms..Perhaps the Answer to our Housing Crisis?
Walsall’s Spare Rooms..Perhaps the Answer to our Housing Crisis?

Of the 107,822 households in Walsall, 33,667 of those properties don’t only have one spare bedroom, but two spare bedrooms! Could this be the cure for Walsall’s housing crisis?

The fundamental problem is the fact that the supply of homes to live in has not historically met demand, increasing property values and rents, thus ensuring home ownership becomes an unattainable ambition for the youngsters of Walsall.

Let’s state the obvious..demand needs to drop or supply needs to rise to stop this trend getting worse for the generations to come.  Don’t get me wrong, I admire Downing Street’s plans to build 200,000 starter homes which will be offered to first time buyers under 40 with a minimum 20% discount price.  However, the building of starter homes on current building sites, where new homes builders already have to build a certain number of affordable ‘starter’ homes at the moment under a different scheme, does not increase the stock of new ‘starter’ homes, it simply replaces one affordable scheme with another.

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Which month of the year is ‘best’ to sell your Walsall property?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , ,
Which month of the year is ‘best’ to sell your Walsall property?
Which month of the year is ‘best’ to sell your Walsall property?

I had a homeowner from Bloxwich email me the other day. She said she had been following my blog for a while and wanted to pick my brain on when I thought is the best time of the year to sell a property in Walsall. Trying to calculate the best time to put your Walsall property on the market can often seem something akin to witchcraft and whilst I would agree that there are particular times of the year that can prove more productive than others, there are plenty of factors that need to be taken into consideration.

Even if you are putting your property on the market, you don’t know how long it will take to find a buyer. At the moment, for the latest set of figures for all 52 Estate Agents that cover the Walsall area (not including the online), the average length of time it takes to find a buyer for any Walsall property is as follows…

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Walsall Landlords & Investors – does your letting agent go THIS far?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , , ,

Walsall Landlords & Investors – does your letting agent go THIS far?
Walsall Landlords & Investors – does your letting agent go THIS far?
A local Walsall landlord recently contacted me after he found my blog (the Walsall Property Blog) and thought to take me up on my offer of advice.  He lives in Parkhall and was thinking of purchasing a property he had seen.  As I’ve always maintained, opinion costs nothing and I am always happy to pass my opinion on any property in the open market.

After he sent me the link to the advertised property I started my research and found some interesting facts.  The property in Walsall was a 3 bed mid-terrace advertised for £129,950.  Just four weeks ago, when it was first advertised, it was priced at £134,950.  So a drop of £5,000 in a month! I smelt a potentially motivated seller. Here’s what makes it more interesting…when I dug deeper…I found the property had been on the market two years ago but for some reason, didn’t sell so was taken off market at that time!!

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