Following on from our article last week…. Buying a property for investment means you have a tangible asset, something you can touch and feel (and understand). The returns from investing in property comes from both capital appreciation and income from the rent, and yes whilst property values can go up as well as down, successful buy to let landlords are inclined to take a long-term view on their property investments.
£982 per month
The average gross profit from a Newbury terraced/town house
To give you an example of the current buy to let returns, the average Newbury terraced/town house sells for £316,900, by taking the ‘The Mortgage Works’ BTL 5-year fixed rate of 1.64%, with only £3,938 in up-front fees, a 20-year repayment mortgage would cost you £963 per month or interest only mortgage would cost just £269 per month … considering the average rent for a terraced/town house in Newbury is £1,251 per month … even before management, tax, maintenance and other associated costs, that’s a decent gross profit (the £982 gross profit is an illustrative example using the interest only mortgage and the capital element would need repaying at the end of the term).
So, should you wait to buy your Newbury buy to let investment?
Before buying, take into account factors like the strength of your financial future, your credit score and the current state of the property market and even more importantly, the state of the mortgage market. Look at the current interest rates, they have never been so low and deliberate the experts’ opinions and just as equally your own opinions as to whether property values are on the rise, will stay the same or are likely to fall.
Interest rates are at record lows, meaning borrowing money is cheap money now, so it may be a good time to buy, as you will pay a reduced cost for the pleasure of borrowing money to buy that investment. Yet, if you waited and Newbury property values are on the decline, it may be a good idea to wait, as you could end up getting a better deal on the same type of home, yet if that happens, access to the cheap finance might dry up (meaning you could save some of the purchase price, but the cost of borrowing could go up). It can be very hard to accurately predict what interest rates or property values will do, so these should not be deciding factors – but they are worth considering.
So, what will happen to the Newbury (and UK) property market?
To be honest – nobody knows. What I do know is the Swine Flu in 2009 caused some volatility in the UK property market, but the market stabilised within months. Even in disaster scenarios such as the current one, property remains comparatively stable and will continue to be one of the best places to invest in.
Yes, we could see unemployment rise in the next 6 months (yet the Furlough Scheme has been extended until the autumn) and historically, it has been proved house price falls are not caused by high unemployment; yes GDP will drop drastically because of lockdown yet it could bounce back like it has in China; yes, the number of property transactions will drop, yet that will only really effect the pockets of Newbury removal people, Newbury solicitors & estate agents and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in lost stamp duty receipts; yes there is £82bn worth of property sales on ice during this lockdown (some of which might not complete) .. it’s all ifs, buts and maybes.
Calamity changes things: with every predicament, humanity shifts to become more productive – it’s the way it’s always been
The national debt at the end of the Napoleonic Wars of 1815 in today’s money was an eye watering £4,421,000,000,000 (£4.42 trillion) and even with the eye watering borrowing to fund Covid-19, it stands at £1,821.3 trillion – we have been here before and we came out stronger.
The Bank of England failed in 1825, yet we recovered stronger, the Great Depression of the 1930’s cut the Stock Market by 90%, yet we recovered, WW2 took national debt to 200% of GDP like it had in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800’s – yet we recovered, the oil crisis quadrupled oil prices in the 1970’s – and we came back … the list goes on with hyper-inflation in the 1970s of 25%, mass unemployment in the 1980’s, Black Monday in 1987, Dot-com bubble in 2001 and the Credit Crunch in 2008/9.
With every economic crisis, the long-term effects of them make people look at their decision making differently
The simple fact is for decades, demand for homes has outstripped supply – hence why property values have remained so robust. People are living longer (71.1 years in 1960 and 81.1 years nowadays), the mass exodus of EU nationals has not taken place since Brexit and the birth rate has increased by 9.1% since the Millennium which means since 2000, the country has needed at least 240,000 households per year to satisfy the demand. On average, we have only built 150,000 households a year, meaning we have a shortfall of 90,000 households each year for 20 years .. a true shortfall of 1.8m households .. and until we start building anything over that 240,000 requirement … demand will always outstrip supply – and we all know what happens to prices when that happens!
