With much turbulence in the housing market a lot has happened in the rental market since our last newsletter so we thought it was time to update you and pass on any snippets that you may find useful.
Market Conditions
Whilst demand for property remains constant there is a lot more property available for tenants to choose from. We have also found that where normally a young couple or professional single person would take a 2 bedroom home they are now either taking a 1 bedroom or not moving at all. This has had quite a knock on effect on property mix, and has led to tenants looking to negotiate on the rent or look for a special deal.
As with many major towns and cities across the country Milton Keynes has a surplus of new 1 and 2 bedroom ‘executive’ city centre apartments which has affected the market considerably with many apartments in the Hub and Vision developments remaining empty for a considerable time. However the more established rental properties in one of the estates are letting much easier as they demand a more realistic rent.
Despite this, now is a good time to invest in a ‘Buy to Let’ property with interest rates being low and as long as you have a 25% deposit lenders are available. Developers are keen to offer exceptional deals and there are some good bargains to be had but steer clear of apartments and flats (even though they tend to be cheaper) as the market is saturated and therefore a let will be more difficult to achieve at a realistic rent.
Should you find yourself in difficulty for any reason and cannot pay your mortgage on your rental property do not bury your head in the sand but communicate with us as we can often come to an arrangement with your lender and can work with them to save your property from repossession if we know what is happening.
On the other side of the coin we are finding that already during the first quarter of the year we have had some tenants contact us to say they have to leave the property as they have been made redundant. According to recent reports this is due to worsen. We would always advise to take an early release set up which negates as little loss if any at all for either party. If you are not sure of this set up please contact us. However, if your tenant gets into this situation we would be in touch with you as soon as we are aware. As soon as we see that rent has not come in we try to contact the tenant within a few days of it happening and we always advise the tenant to make us aware of their circumstances.
Rent & Legal Insurance
Berni recently took a telephone call from a Landlord asking what was happening with the repossession of his property and asked what happens with the Rent & Legal Insurance. The Landlord was then told that he had declined the Rent & Legal Insurance at the beginning of the let and the only option was to seek help or advice from his solicitor or a specialist agency such as Landlord Action. The disappointment in his voice was clear and he sounded surprised. Possession of a property can cost in excess of £1500 and coupled with the loss of several months rent could easily come to over £5000. As landlords ourselves we pay for Rent & Legal insurance on all of our own properties and would recommend that this should always be in place – for the cost of just under £100 per annum there is no comparison for Rent & Legal. If you want any information on this please do not hesitate to contact us.
Tenant Deposit Protection Schemes
To date we have had very few difficult cases with regard to deposits. The odd one or two were in the very early days of the new schemes life and procedures were not necessarily clear from the scheme management.
Belvoir Milton Keynes can assure all landlords that evidence required at the end of a tenancy has tightened up considerably over the last two years and if a claim is required then more often than not we have found that our inventories along with our regular property visits have held up
