I had an interesting email from someone in Oakham
a few weeks ago that I want to share with you (don’t worry I asked his
permission to share this with you all).
In a nutshell, the gentleman lives in Oakham, is
in his mid-60’s and still working. He has a decent pension, so that when he
does retire in a couple of years’ time, it will give him a comfortable life.
He has recently inherited £200,000 and told
me one option was to put the amount into a savings account.
The best he could
find was a 2 year bond with the Post Office which paid 1.9%; meaning he would
get £3,800 in interest a year. Another consideration was to buy a property in Oakham
to rent out and he wanted to know my thoughts on what he should buy, but he had
concerns as he didn’t want to take a mortgage out at his time of life. He was
also worried about all the tax changes he had read about in the papers for
landlords.
Notwithstanding the war on Oakham landlords being waged by George Osborne, the attraction of bricks and mortar endures for many. As our man is a cash buyer, he would not have to deal with the intricate cut to mortgage interest tax relief that will diminish, or even eradicate, the profits of many Oakham landlords. It’s true he would face the extra 3% in stamp duty to buy a second property, but with some good negotiation techniques, that could soon be mitigated.
I told him that buying an Oakham buy-to-let
property is all about the total return on investment. True, he could put the
money in the Post Office bond and receive his interest of £3,800 a year or, as
he rightly suggested, invest in property in Oakham. The average yield (yield being the equivalent of the interest
rate on the property) at the moment in Oakham is 3.95% per annum, meaning
our potential first time landlord should be able to, depending on what he
bought in the town, earn before costs £7,900 a year. However, I told him there are plenty of landlords in Oakham earning
half as much again (if not more) if he was willing to consider more specialist
investment types of properties. Again,
if you want to know where, please look at my blog or drop me an email.
The bottom line is that the success of investing
in Oakham buy-to-let property versus a Post Office savings account (or whatever
Bank or Building Society is offering the best rate) will depend on the
performance of those assets. Unlike with a savings account, with property the
capital you invested can also go up (and yes, it can go down as well – more of
that in second).
Property values in Oakham have risen in the last
12 months by 1.6% meaning, that if our chap had bought a year ago, not only
would he have received the £7,900 in rent, but also seen an uplift of £3,200 … meaning
his overall return for the year would have been £11,100 (not bad when compared
to the Post Office!).
Ah, but the doom mongers amongst you will say property
values can go down, as they did in 2008, and in 1988 and 1979. Yes, but after
1979, prices had bounced back to their 1979 levels by 1984 and went on to grow
an additional 58% in the following 4 years. Then again, they dropped in 1988
and did take 13 years to reach back to those 1988 figures, but the following 6
years (between 2001 and 2007) they then increased by an additional 66%.
Now, according to the Land Registry, average
property values in Rutland currently stand 0.14% above the January 2008 level,
and anecdotal evidence suggests that in the nicer parts of Oakham, we are well
above these sorts of levels. Therefore, all this talk of property crashes is unfounded.
So, what would that £200,000 windfall get you in
Oakham? A decent 2 bed semi in Barleythorpe, a really nice 3 bed end terrace in
Oakham or a fantastic 3 bed detached in Cottesmore.
In fact, the world is your oyster. But which Oyster?
Well, my blog reading friends, if you want to read similar articles like this
and what I consider to be the very best of buy-to-let deals in the area,
irrespective of which agent is selling it, then you need to visit the Oakham
Property Blog www.rutlandandstamfordpropertyblog.co.uk
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