walsall property

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 Landlords vs Walsall Savers

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

A couple of articles back, I did a piece on the effect of the 0.25% base rate on the Walsall property market. This time, I want to look at the situation that Walsall ‘savers’ find themselves in.

What, you might ask, has the plight of Walsall savers have to do with the Walsall property market… well, everything in fact!

Read the newspapers, and every financial wizard is stating that with the decision of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee in early August to cut the Bank of England base rate to an all time low of 0.25%, savers should prepare themselves for interest rates to stay low well into the early 2020’s.

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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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Walsall’s Love Affair with the 24,044 Terraced Homes!

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

terraced-homes-walsall2-e1472339490937

Call me old fashioned, but I do like the terraced house. In fact, I have done some research that I hope you will find of interest!

In architectural terms, a terraced or townhouse is a style of housing in use since the late 1600’s in the UK, where a row of symmetrical/identical houses share their side walls. The first terraced houses were actually built by a French man, Monsieur Barbon around St. Paul’s Cathedral within the rebuilding process after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Interestingly, it was the French that invented the terraced house around 1610 in the Le Marais district of Paris with its planned squares and properties with identical facades. However, it was the 1730’s in the UK, that the terraced/townhouse came into its own in London and of course in Bath, with the impressive Royal Crescent.

However, we are in Walsall, not Bath, so.. Continue reading →

Walsall’s Poor Estate Agents!

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , ,
Walsall’s Poor Estate Agents!
Walsall’s Poor Estate Agents!

After a little hiatus I am now back on the Blog.

My friends often call me an estate agent, but then I remind them that whilst a lot of estate agents do both property sales and lettings, I am first and foremost a landlord myself and will always be and as a result of my own success by default, I became a letting agent. I have been a letting agent for over 11 years now and plan to remain a letting agent only.

By specialising in lettings, it enables me and my team to get the job done right. In a recent article, when we spoke about the difference between neighbouring property markets and their prices, one landlord who popped his head round our door in Orchard Road to chat about the Walsall property market got talking about how he thought there were less for sale boards Continue reading →

Walsall Property Numbers Tell Us a Different Story!!

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , ,
Walsall Property Numbers Tell Us a Different Story
Walsall Property Numbers Tell Us a Different Story

New Prime Minister, Theresa May, has taken no time at all to comment on housing in the UK.  Speaking in Birmingham, she said it was important to give people more opportunity: “It is why housing matters so much, and why we need to do far more to get more houses built. Because unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. Young people will find it even harder to afford their own home”.

I thought I would look at the Walsall property market numbers to highlight what sort of problems she faces.

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Walsall First Time Buyers Should Make Hay Whilst the Sun Shines!

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , ,
Walsall First Time Buyers Should Make Hay Whilst the Sun Shines!
Walsall First Time Buyers Should Make Hay Whilst the Sun Shines!

I was talking to one of my portfolio landlords the other day as I was helping him to source another buy-to-let property when he mentioned something that made me think.  He was complaining about the amount of additional Stamp Duty he had to pay (due to the increase in April 2016), which I have discussed in a previous article on this blog.  This made me think about the other side of the property market who stood to benefit from the investors gripe..first-time buyers of course!!

There’s a whole legion of wannabe Walsall 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 Walsall landlords with cash at the ready. Since the start of April, buy-to-let landlords have had to pay an additional 3% stamp duty on their purchases so, whilst demand from some buy-to-let landlords has dropped away, in the interim, it offers first time buyers a chance to fill the vacuum with less competition from cash rich landlords – over two thirds of buy-to-let properties were purchased without a mortgage in the last 7 years – who could bid more and complete quicker.

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Walsall Tenants are Setting Their Own Rents!!

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

Last week I went to meet a landlord who found me through my blog.  The property was a traditional end of terrace in north Walsall between Leamore and Coalpool.  The landlord had the property with an agent from out of the area and wanted my opinion.  Or at least that’s what I thought…

Quite often, when talking about the rental market, we talk about property, condition, area, location, amenities/ facilities etc. and seem to forget one of the most important parties to the equation… tenants.

Without tenants, there is no demand for the rental property. The profile of the Walsall tenant has changed and continues to change.  Although this is in part due to the credit crunch, job mobility and the raising of deposits, an increased number of people in their twenties are choosing to rent rather than buy and have done so, even when they were in a position when they could have bought a property.

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EU Referendum – 67.9% of Walsall Voters Vote With Their Feet…

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , ,
EU Referendum - 67.9% of Walsall Voters Vote With Their Feet...
EU Referendum – 67.9% of Walsall Voters Vote With Their Feet…

As most of the polls suggested a Remain Vote, it came as a surprise to most people, including the City. The Sterling has dropped 6% this morning (at time of typing article), after the City Whiz kids got their predictions wrong and MP’s from the Remain camp are using words like “challenging times ahead”.

.. and now the vote has been made .. what next for the 67,280 Walsall homeowners especially the 33,748 of those Walsall homeowners with a mortgage?

The Chancellor in the campaign suggested property prices would drop by 18%. Using Treasury estimates, their method of calculating this was tenuous at best, but focused around the abrupt and hasty increase in UK interest rates, which in turn would raise the cost of mortgages, and therefore lower demand for property, causing a drop in property prices.… and I would agree and say, yes .. that will probably happen.

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Buy to Let..Why the Walsall Property Market?

Head of Juicing @Ashmore Lettings & Sales Ltd Walsall Property Market , , , , , , , , ,
Buy to Let..Why the Walsall Property Market?
Buy to Let..Why the Walsall Property Market?

During the course of my day to day activities I talk to a number of landlords.  If you look on social media profiles you will probably find very few people, if any, who set their profile status as a landlord or claim to be one.  As the market evolves with the Private Rented Sector having already outpaced the Social Housing Sector, I have noticed a shift in a new breed of investors entering the property rental market.

Many people in our part of the West Midlands, over the last few years, have seen the buy to let market become all about nest egg investment.  It is fuelled by pitiful interest rates on building society savings and reflects the fact that building society savings accounts are paying half a per cent interest and pension returns are struggling to match expectations, turning more and more people into landlords to secure their future.

So what can you expect from your rental property investment?   Continue reading →